


but maybe, for you, i'd go against all the odds

by uchiuchi



Category: Free!
Genre: Hunger Games AU, M/M, Slow Build, haru being a kickass fighter, not childhood friends in this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-03-05 06:32:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3109613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uchiuchi/pseuds/uchiuchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As if he’s heard them, the other raises his head and catches Haru staring. Haru refuses to look away first, standing his ground, and so their gazes remain locked for another few seconds. Then, the brunet smiles and raises his hand, throwing a small wave in his direction. </p><p>Haru blinks, dumbfounded, and lets go of his arrow. </p><p>or</p><p>In which Haruka and Makoto are from different districts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. meeting

**Author's Note:**

> “Each meeting occurs at the precise moment for which it was meant. Usually, when it will have the greatest impact on our lives.”

Somewhere in Panem, a dark-haired, 18 year old boy is making his way to the center of the town square. Silence surrounds him — not even a hushed whisper is heard — as everyone holds heavy hearts for the one who’d been chosen on his last reaping year.

“From District 4, our second tribute, Nanase Haruka!”

Somewhere else in Panem, an olive-haired, 17 year old boy is being pulled to the center of the town square. A little girl’s screams are piercing the air, everyone else communicating in frantic words, as they watch him take his place with watering eyes.

“From District 12, our first tribute, Tachibana Makoto!”

 

“Hey, wanna form an alliance?”

“No.”

“Come on, look at you,” the redhead who’d decided to bother Haru ten minutes ago says, poking the top of his arm. Haru glares at his finger until he pulls away. “You don’t have the strength that I do. We could make a great team.”

Haru pulls back his arrow and launches it, landing it dead-center on the target. “No.”

The redhead clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and begins to twirl the knife he’s holding. Haru wishes he would do it somewhere else. Then the man puts his arms behind his head and sighs, tilting it back as if deep in thought. All Haru can think about is why he files his teeth. “What crawled up your ass? You can’t expect to survive out there alone.”

Haru rolls his eyes, finds that statement funny because only _one_ person gets to survive in the end. He can fully expect having to do it on his own, and he wasn’t going to risk getting killed by a) choosing an inept partner or b) choosing a traitorous one. And if they did end up being the last two left, he didn’t want to drive an arrow through the heart of someone he’d been teammates with. He’d much rather kill someone whose face he’s only seen once.

“Listen, you have range, and I’m good in close combat.”

He’s starting to find this man troublesome. He lets another arrow fly, splitting his previous one in half. “Why don’t you ask the other tribute from your district?”

“Already did, and they’re on board. But she’s only good at medicine.”

“Then go look for someone else.” Haru pulls back another arrow, ready to fire. He pauses for a second to scan the room, eyes traveling between tributes. A lot of them seem to be in the habit of showing off, slicing heads off of dummies, throwing spears through their necks. He continues his search until his gaze lands on a rather muscular brunet towards the back of the room, who seems to be focused on an object in his hands. Haru nods in his direction. “He looks strong.” _Probably from Districts 1 or 2._

The redhead turns and places his hands on his hips. “Looks like a close combat sort of guy. No use in having two on the same team.” He scratches his neck. “Besides, he’s just sitting there. I haven’t seen him train or anything.”

As if he’s heard them, the other raises his head and catches Haru staring. Haru refuses to look away first, standing his ground, and so their gazes remain locked for another few seconds. Then, the brunet smiles and raises his hand, throwing a small wave in his direction.

Haru blinks, dumbfounded, and lets go of his arrow.

It hits the very edge of the target.

 

“From District 4, Nanase Haruka, with a score of 10.”

Haru can hear cheering coming from the main room, but honestly, his score doesn’t surprise him. In fact, he had found it a little odd when — after successfully hitting ten targets in a row — a sniffle had come from the direction of the gamemakers. He’d looked up only to find a man with glasses, face in his hands, mumbling something about how beautiful his form had been.

Still, he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and grabs the remote from next to him, ready to switch off the TV and go to bed. The words of his mentor echo in his head, though — _“If you want to watch alone, you need to watch the entire thing”_ — and so he holds off for now and keeps his eyes glued to the screen.

Earlier, the shark-toothed man who wouldn’t leave him alone — Rin was his name — had been on with who Haru assumed to be his sister. They were from District 2 and had gotten scores of 9 and 7, respectively. Only one other had matched his own score of 10 so far.

Haru starts to get restless as the announcement drags on, attention waning by the minute. He listens to the score of the male tribute from District 12 and hovers his finger over the power button, ready to call it a night, but then the face of the brunet he’d seen earlier flashes on screen.

_Oh, right, him._

Haru blinks.

_Isn’t there supposed to be a female tribute from his district?_

Haruka ponders this as the TV rings out, “From District 12, Tachibana Makoto, with a score of 5.” _The lowest one yet,_ he thinks, and from the laughing he hears coming from the main room, he’s sure the number is downright awful.

He frowns, clicks off the system, and sleeps.

 

Haru hates the blue glitter around his eyes, the skin-tight clothing he’s in, and doesn’t understand how this represents his fishing district at all. To make matters worse, he’s sitting like this in front of the entire Capitol, in front of all the districts watching him, and in front of a peppy blond who keeps screaming into his ear. _Nagisa_ was what he’d introduced himself as.

“Nanase Haruka! Mind if I call you Haru-chan?”

 _Yes_. “No.”

“Great!” Nagisa winks at him. Haru doesn’t know why. “Now, we’re all dying to know how you ended up here.”

“My name got picked.” 

He pouts. “Ah, that’s no fun…” The crowd doesn’t seem that interested either, and usually Haru wouldn’t care, but these are the same people that would be sending him necessities in the arena. Nagisa quickly gets over his disappointment and picks up on the dampening mood, jumping to the rescue. “Tell us about yourself then!”

Haru shifts in his seat, wracking his brain for a suitable response. What could be say about himself that would get people to take to him? “I… like to swim.”

“Oh!” The audience still doesn’t seem too entertained but some of them are letting out hums of approval. He’ll take what he can get. “Makes sense for someone from District 4. Which brings me to this: have you ever caught fish with your bare hands?”

Well that isn’t a question he’d rehearsed for. “...No?”

Groans start emitting from the crowd immediately following his response. Haru purses his lips and grabs at the fabric of his pants. He’s starting to get annoyed with how adventurous they expect his life to be. Did they want him harpooning fish straight out of the water?

“I mean, it’s normal fishing, I make my own poles, I have a special one that I use,” Haru fumbles.

Nagisa reaches over and grabs his hand, pink orbs beginning to swim. “Haru-chan, I think I see what you’re saying. Your simplistic fishing has great meaning to you… To do it any other way would be unthinkable!” Haru jumps in his seat. “That pole you made, you made it with love, and when you catch those fish, you catch them knowing they’ll be going to something else that you love: us.” Nagisa makes a show of wiping at his eyes. “Isn’t that right, Haru-chan?”

 _Far from it,_ Haru wants to say, but he has a feeling Nagisa knows he’s spewing lies and is just helping him craft a story, so he gratefully nods his head. He begins to hear little whimpers and sobs coming from behind him. Nagisa beams.

“Everyone! Let’s give it up for Haru-chan!”

He’s met with an uproar of applause.

Nagisa winks again. This time, Haru knows why.

 

Haruka steps onto the balcony atop the tribute center. He stands there for a moment, takes a deep breath as the wind gently breezes past him, then closes his eyes and imagines himself sitting by the water at home. Slowly he makes his way to the ground, pulls his knees to his chest, and tilts his head to look up at the sky.

Tomorrow, at this time, he would be in the arena.

Scenarios starts to flash through his mind. At this time tomorrow, he could be looking for food, or engaging in a battle, or sleeping, or taking cover. He could be searching for a weapon, taking someone out, watching someone _get_ taken out.

Or he could be dead.

The thought begins to gnaw at him and he doesn’t attempt to hold it back, because the moment he’d heard his name being read off the little white slip that had completely changed his life, he’d done just that. He hadn't allowed himself to think for even a second about the possibility of not returning home, not even when he'd stepped onto the train that took him from it.

He notices something gleaming just to his left and turns his head, eyes flickering to the brightest star in the sky. It momentarily stops his thoughts as he stares at it, and he accepts that he might be crazy for thinking this, but he’s sure it’s the same one he looks at every night from his bedroom all the way in District 4. It's the one he’d pointed out to his grandmother when he was just a little boy.

_“Of all the millions of stars you can see right now, you chose to look at that one. A star shines at its brightest when someone else chose to look at that one, too.”_

A comfort begins to settle over him the longer he stares, and Haruka only lets his gaze drift from its spot in the sky when he hears a door open behind him. He doesn’t care to see who it is until that person is taking a seat just feet from him. It’s at that point that his curiosity gets the best of him and he tentatively moves his head, catching sight of the man who’d smiled at him in the training center.

He’s also looking up at the sky, his features completely relaxed. Haru keeps his eyes on him for only a second longer, then shifts further away.

“This is the last time we get to see the stars, huh?”

Haru doesn’t understand why this guy’s talking to him. Tomorrow, they’ll be enemies. They’ll try to kill each other. There’s no point in making small talk to the person who could drive an arrow through your heart the very the next day. But he does find what Makoto says to be strange, and although he says nothing, the other turns to him and smiles as if he’d spoken aloud.

“The skies are simulated in the arena.”

Ah.

He’d forgotten about that.

And with that knowledge, Haru’s eyes flit to the star once more, which seems to have grown even brighter.

 

“Remember, you don’t know what the arena looks like, so you have to do some quick thinking.”

“Mhm.”

“If there’s a lot of trees, then grab as much stuff as you can and hide.”

“Yeah.”

“If it’s a desert, just run.”

“Sure.”

“If it’s anything else, you’re on your own.”

“Thanks Sasabe.”

“No problem,” he replies, clapping his hand down on Haru’s back. “And here’s this to remind you that home is waiting.” Haru opens up his hands and watches as his mentor drops a pendant into them. He tucks it safely into his pocket. “Somehow I knew you’d bring the dolphin one.”

Haru steps into the glass tube. “It’s the only one I have,” he says, but it slides shut before he can finish his sentence, so he’s not sure he was even heard. Sasabe then waves goodbye, mouths _good luck_ , and walks out, probably to get some quick words in with the other tribute.

It isn’t long before he feels himself being lurched upwards. A hatch above him opens and he squints as sunlights hits his eyes. When he comes to stop, the countdown starts.

_60, 59, 58…_

Haru blinks to regain his vision and looks around immediately. There are a lot of trees, he first notices, and he’s grateful. His method of attack wouldn’t work at all if he were exposed all the time. With a quick breath, he looks directly in front of him to formulate some sort of strategy to get to the Cornucopia, and then stops when he doesn’t see it.

_53, 52, 51…_

He looks around to see if it’s behind him, or hidden in the trees, or on a hill somewhere. Then he hears a gasp coming from his right and looks at the tribute next to him, sees her staring right at the ground in front of them. Haru does the same. 

_46, 45, 44…_

Except it’s not solid ground. The entire area is just water, and beneath it, the shape of a structure makes itself known.

_39, 38, 37…_

Haru wonders how many people here can’t swim, and whether they’d run off without grabbing anything useful or risk drowning to get some.

_33, 32, 31…_

He doesn’t meet the eyes of any other tribute because the last thing he wants is for someone to take it as an invitation to come after him. Instead he just looks down at the water, waiting, using these last seconds to imagine that he’s back home, swinging his feet in it.

_16, 15, 14…_

_11, 10, 9…_

_6, 5, 4…_

_3…_

_2…_

_1…_

He immediately jumps into the water and swims towards the Cornucopia, the only one from his area to get so deep so quickly. He grabs a black backpack and reaches towards another item gleaming to his right before realizing it’s a mine. At this point, another tribute has reached him and extends their arm towards it, intending on grabbing what he hadn’t.

Haru turns and swims away, but shortly after an explosion goes off behind him and he’s being propelled forwards, head hitting the structure. He loses some of his oxygen as the breath gets knocked out of him and he blindly grabs for something else, a bow hanging beside him, and swims upwards, deciding not to overdo it.

When Haru reaches the surface, he pulls himself out. He puts his hands on his knees and breathes, then turns around and sees the water already beginning to stain red.

Directly across from him, another person emerges from the water and he doesn’t stay to see who it is, just pushes his legs and runs into the grove of trees. He guesses not many people have made it here yet and plans to slow down and gather some food in this small window he has, until someone’s rounding a tree and colliding with him, sending him to the ground.

He briefly sees green.  
  



	2. day one

If there were ever a time for Haruka to hate the water, it would be now.

His clothing, heavy with the liquid, does nothing to help him steady himself as his body strikes the ground. The backpack he’d gotten his hands on barely cushions his fall and he has time to grimace at that, because there can’t be anything of use in there if it can flatten like paper.

Three loud _boom_ s sound above him.

He quickly remembers that he had bumped into a some _one_ , and that in the next few seconds, he could be the reason for a fourth. His blood runs cold at the realization.

Haruka’s knuckles shade white as he grips the bow in his hands. Without another thought, or even a glance at the person he’d collided with, he reaches behind him and closes his hand around empty air, forgetting that he hadn’t retrieved arrows for his bow. He’s surprised that the first emotion that runs through him is annoyance, not fear. He can practically hear Sasabe screaming at him through the screen.

A small movement to Haru’s left snaps him back to reality and he sees a large, bulky figure extend his arm behind his own back. Haru’s eyes widen — _now_ he feels fear — and he shrugs the backpack off his shoulders, quickly scrambling to his feet and pulling off one of his shirts to make himself lighter. He makes to run, then feels a hand close around his wrist.

He figures shouting “Let go of me!” hasn’t helped anyone in this situation, but it doesn’t mean that he still won’t try. He raises an arm above his head and turns around, ready to slam whoever it is over the head, only to feel another hand go around _that_ wrist, too.

Green.

Bright, immense green, only an inch from his face, and Haru has no idea why it hasn’t killed him yet.

“Do you need arrows?”

_....Huh?_

Haru stops trying to force his closed fist through the skull of the other man, instead choosing to forcefully pull away until his wrists are let go of. Against his better judgement, he doesn’t run, only moves backwards a few steps and stares. It’s the same brunet he’d seen multiple times in the capitol, _Makoto_ or something, and the first thing Haru notices is that his clothing isn’t wet, which is impossible, unless he didn’t even dive for the Cornucopia in the first place.

“I grabbed a few but I’ve never shot one before.”

Haru blinks out of his thoughts. Makoto blinks back.

“What?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Why would you offer weapons to your enemy?”

“Eh? Well I’m not going to use them, so…”

_This guy is going to get himself killed,_ Haru thinks, stopping his jaw from physically dropping when Makoto extends five arrows in his direction. His eyes dart to Makoto, the arrows, then back to Makoto again, who only smiles in response. Then slowly, hesitantly, he reaches his hand towards the outstretched arrows. His fingers graze over the sharp metal. He stops right before he grabs them. “I could take these and kill you right now.”

“But you won’t.”

Haruka furrows his brows, completely lost, and almost doesn’t take the arrows — he doesn’t like feeling as though he has to owe people anything — but he’d be kicking himself later, he’s sure of it.  “Don’t expect me to do any favors for you,” he warns.

Makoto smiles. “Okay.”

Then Haru closes his hands around the arrows and pulls them away, quickly unzipping his bag to stuff them in there. He briefly debates using one of them right now, but he can’t just kill him, not when he’s standing there _smiling._ Besides, if he was just going to go and give out weapons, someone else would soon do it for him.

So instead, Haru starts backing away, keeping his eyes on Makoto, and when he steps into the cover of a large tree, he turns and sprints.

_He won’t last a day_.

 

 

To his surprise, Makoto does last a day.

Haru’s sitting up in a tree, munching down on a granola bar that had been in his bag. It’s soggy and crushed but it’s all that he has, and it isn’t _that_ bad.

It’s not that he hadn’t been able to find any meat during the day. It’s just that they were all small — rabbits, squirrels, birds — and he didn’t want to waste an arrow on something like that. Even if he could just grab it back, the metal on the arrow was weak and would break if it hit bone.

Haruka saves half of his snack for later, slips it into his pocket, and looks up.

As he watches the night sky, he counts the faces of the tributes he sees.

The two from Districts 5, 7, and 9 and one each from Districts 3, 6, 8, 10, and 11.

He wonders if it makes him a little barbaric to feel relief that almost half of them are already gone. But that’s their goal, isn’t it? To be the last one standing?

With a sigh, Haru pulls a brown blanket over him, one the same shade as tree bark that had also come in his bag alongside a match and a ball of rope. He busies himself with staring at the little hairs sticking out every which way, even reaches a point where he’s starting to count them, and once he hits twenty-four, he falls into a slumber.

 

 

Haruka’s startled awake by a crunching below him.

He’s sure that it hasn’t even been an hour because his eyelids _still_ feel like lead, and he wonders if anyone’s ever collapsed in the arena from exhaustion. If not, he may very well be the first.

He slowly shrugs his head out of the blanket and looks down, blowing his bangs up and away from his eyes. He brings his bow forward and silently thanks that it’s not as extravagant as the ones in the training center, even if it _is_ a lot flimsier, because it’s a lot easier to spot a gleaming silver bow than it is to spot a plain wooden one. He likes the feel of this one better, too. It’s something he would make.

Haru slides an arrow onto the string of the bow and points it downwards. He watches the ground.

Another crunching sound, this time to his left. It’s also _very_ high up.

Slowly, Haru turns his head.

He blinks.

A small white bird with a fat insect in its mouth blinks back.

Haruka stares at it, unsure of whether this small animal had really been the cause of the noise. But then it’s chomping down with its beak again and Haru sighs. He lets his head fall against the trunk of the tree in exasperation.

Behind him, the bird starts tweeting in rapid succession, and Haru thinks it sounds like it’s laughing at him.

He tugs the blanket back over his head and closes his eyes, snapping them open again when it gets pulled off. Above him, the bird has the fabric in its beak. Haru glares — yes, _glares_ \- at it before plucking it away and pulling it back over him, only to have it slide down again.

“Stop that,” Haru frowns, grabbing the blanket again.

The bird squawks and bites it away before Haru can even begin to pull it over himself.

“Why?”

He asks this in such a tone that it’s almost as though he’s actually expecting a response back. He reaches for the cover once more and the bird flies back a foot, squawking again. He gets to his knees and slowly watches the animal, waiting, then quickly darts his arm forward to grasp at the blanket.

It doesn’t work.

And if Haru had been told that here, in this bloodthirsty arena, he would be fighting with a bird over a blanket, he probably would’ve laughed.

Another crunching sounds behind him and Haru turns around, wondering if the bird somehow called for backup. He freezes when human voices begin to carry over to him and he quickly readies his bow again, pressing his body into the tree trunk.

The bird, Haru guesses, doesn’t appreciate how his attention has been divided. It’s apparently made a game of all this and it squawks impatiently and flaps its wings as if to say _I still have your blanket, you know._ Haru waves a hand in its direction to silence it, which soon after gets pecked.

Haru allows himself another glare at the bird. It lets out another flurry of tweets.

“Oniichan, you’re such an _ass_.” 

Haru’s attention is directed back below him as he sees two figures emerge from behind a wall of green.

“Your mouth’s been awfully smart ever since we got here, Gou.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t let him join our team because he hated sharks.”

“Who the fuck hates sharks?”

“And then _killed_ him.”

Haru blinks. Someone else had died?

“Yeah, well, I really didn’t even care about whether he liked them or not,” the voice says, and Haru recognizes it to be the same voice that had constantly bombarded him with pleas to be alliances. “He seemed like he would be a threat later on, so I offed him.”

Haru almost snorts.

_Knew it._

“Besides, did you see the way he was staring at you?”

A sigh. “But you wouldn’t kill Kintarou-kun if he had done the same thing.”

“Are you kidding? I wish that fucker was in here. My hands would be the first around his neck.” A pause. “It’s Momotarou, by the way.”

_This is getting nowhere,_ Haru thinks to himself. His hand pulls back at the arrow in his hands and he debates which one to kill first, _if_ he was even going to kill any. Killing Rin would be the safest option, just in case the guy had a knife he could chuck high up into the tree. But as he considers the idea more and more, his hand relaxes on the arrow, because his stomach is lurching at the idea of killing someone who doesn’t attack him first. 

He turns to look at the bird, who flaps its wings once in response.

“In any case, never knew District 12 was full of a bunch of pigs.”

“ _Oniichan._ ”

_District 12?_

Before Haru has a chance to think about what that means, a rumble shakes the ground he’s over. He digs his nails into the tree to steady himself and looks around, eyes darting every which way. Behind him, the bird squawks again before taking flight, and Haru barely has time to be angry about the fact that it just flew off with his cover.

“Ah, shit,” Rin mutters. He grabs a hold of his Gou’s hand. “Come on.”  

“What? Where?” Haru keeps his gaze trained on the two, also curious.

“Literally _anywhere_ but here, Gou. The gamemakers already want to stir trouble so they’re doing something wonky with the terrain. Honestly, it hasn’t even been a day and…” His voice trails off as he runs in another direction.

Haru’s left sitting there.

That is, until he feels the tree he’s on begin to get uprooted. The very ground beneath him is splitting open, bringing to view a large pit of nothing. It’s completely pitch black, and although Haru can smell the beginnings of salty water, he’s not sure how shallow it is or how far he’d have to fall to get there.

  _“Ah, look! It seems as though trouble is heading Haru-ch--, I mean, Nanase Haruka’s way. I bet it was that sneaky Rei-chan’s idea!”_

The branch underneath him snaps and he’s falling. But his leg scrapes against bark and pushes him _just_ so, body falling just north of the gaping hole. It only takes him a second to get to his feet and then he’s running, maneuvering his way through the trees, avoiding being crushed by falling wood.

Haru chances a look behind him and almost freezes when he sees water begin to gush out from the hole that’d been created. It starts off as a steady stream but quickly escalates into something resembling a waterfall. The crashing of waves he hears roars in his head louder than anything he’s ever heard at home.

A lump forms in his throat. He pushes his feet against the ground and takes off again, breath hitching when he reaches a large wall of rock. Looking up, he can make out the outline of a surface. _It’s a cliff_ , he thinks, which is good, _will_ be good, if he can find a way to get up there within the next thirty seconds.

Haru quickly takes off his backpack and gets to his knees, rummaging through its contents. A match won’t help, he decides, but he takes out the ball of rope and unwinds it. A deep breath, and then he’s casting it upwards, attempting to hook it around the jagged stones at the top.

Haru quickly finds out that he doesn’t have the strength to throw it as high as he needs to, and as a shallow puddle of water begins to surround his feet, he wracks his mind for an idea.

Surveying the cliff edge as quickly as he can, he spots a hole no wider than a quarter towards the very top. His eyes flicker in realization and he reaches an arm back and grabs an arrow, tying the rope securely around its bottom. Then he steps back, closes an eye, aims upwards, and releases.

It’s a clean shot, regardless of it being the middle of the night. He tugs at the rope to test its grip — it’s nowhere near perfect, but it’s all he has — then plants his feet against the rocky wall and begins to scale up.

At this point, the water’s already cascaded all the way to the edge. Now it’s climbing along with Haru, and it becomes a race.

With limited vision, Haru can’t make the wisest of choices concerning where to place his foot as he ascends. He definitely makes a wrong turn somewhere because he feels his foot graze the water and it momentarily makes him lose his step. The sudden jolt snaps the arrow above him and he digs his fingers into the closest crevice he can feel for, watching the broken wood and metal fall past him into the water.

It feels like he’s been climbing for an eternity, and that eternity only seems to drag now that he has to use his own strength. His fingers have never been thick, never been strong, are actually _shaking_ right now as they scrape against rocks. He’s starting to lose his speed but his hands close over the edge of the cliff as he does, and with a final grunt, he carries himself over and drops onto the ground.

His chest’s heaving, his hands are blistered, and for the first time in these games, he feels as though he can taste death at the back of his throat.

Haru’s eyes slip shut as he lays there. A canon sounds in the distance.

And then there were eleven.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to watch more action movies because I'm pretty sure I burned hundreds of calories trying to do that last scene.  
> Hope it's enjoyable. ^^


	3. alliance

His head’s spinning. The feeling in his arms is gone and he raises them above his face. There are small pebbles clinging to his skin and he flicks them away, though they still leave an impression. His legs are asleep and it’s hard to sit up for a while because his back is so _stiff_ , which is weird, because he feels completely rested. Yet, at the same time, his throat is unbelievably dry. He has to work up saliva to avoid breaking into a coughing fit and his stomach is empty, too.

He wonders how long he’s been sleeping. A day? Two?

Haruka waits until the Earth around him stills to even attempt standing up. His legs quiver but he manages to find his balance.

Grabbing his bag and bow, he peeks over the edge of the cliff and sees nothing but water. This time, though, it’s calm. Haru turns around and begins walking in the other direction because he needs to find food _now_ , can feel his energy draining by the second and doesn’t exactly feel like dying over something like this.

After walking for half an hour, the bare cliff merges into another green forest. There’s bound to be animals here, and after making his way through shrubs and branches of green, he spots a small rabbit munching on a plot of grass.

Haruka readies his arrow and crouches behind a tree. He feels bad for doing this, has only ever killed fish for food, but another wave of dizziness overtakes him and so, with only another second’s hesitation, he releases the arrow. It spears the rabbit, which goes still immediately.

Haru lowers his weapon and walks over to the carcass. He crouches down and gives it a little poke, then removes the arrow from its body. The tip is cracked but it’s still usable, so he stuffs it back into his bag. In the process, he takes out the match he has and holds it over a stick, about to strike a flame to life. Then he hears a voice carry from only a few feet away and drops it, eyes alert. Haru raises his bow again and waits.

“Where did you go?”

_...Not again._

“Did you run off?” he hears, and a wall of leaves is swept aside in front of him. Makoto steps out into the small grove with a knife in his hand and stops, eyes widening when he spots the familiar head of dark hair. Haru pulls back his arrow at once and Makoto holds up his hands. “W-wait!”

“Who’s here with you?”

“Eh? No one’s—”

Haru huffs. “You were calling out to someone.”

“I was calling out to— Oh.” Makoto’s eyes land on the rabbit Haru’s killed and his shoulders slump. Haru looks back and forth between him and the dead animal. He doesn’t understand what’s wrong but when Makoto frowns, a ball of guilt start building in his chest. “Never mind.”

Haru slowly lowers his bow. “...Was this supposed to be your food?”

Makoto shakes his head, tearing his eyes away from the rabbit. “No, I just thought he was cute.”

Haru blinks, confused. Of the answers he expected, Makoto’s seemed a light year away from all of them. “Oh. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Makoto says, laughing lightly. “Anyone would’ve done it. I’d actually be surprised if a tribute saw it and kept it alive, especially since food can be so scarce here and—”

“I thought you were dead,” Haru blurts out.

Makoto stops in his tracks and furrows his brows. “Dead? Why would you think that?”

Haru’s surprised at himself for saying so much, for even extending the conversation beyond the point of necessity. “I overheard someone say they killed a guy from District 12.”

“Ah.” Makoto smiles sheepishly and raises a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “No, that was Anaka-san, the other tribute from my district.” He sighs. “We barely knew each other, but it was hard seeing his name up there…”

Haru gives a stiff nod, because he isn’t sure how to react to that. He doesn’t remember seeing Anaka’s name among the fallen tributes, then blinks in realization. “Up there? As in, the sky?”

“Yes? Unless there’s another way to know who died…”

 _So I did sleep more than a day,_ Haru thinks. No wonder he’s so hungry. “Was there anyone else who died?”

Makoto shakes his head. “No, just him.”

Haru nods again and, just like in the training center, refuses to look away first. It’s not as hard this time since Makoto only keeps his gaze for another half second, and then he’s stuffing the knife into his pocket.

Haru makes to get to his feet but his stomach lets out a rather loud growl and he straightens up, mortified. It doesn’t escape Makoto, who smiles at him and asks, “Are you hungry?”

He is, and there’s still a dead rabbit next to him, but he finds it in bad taste to eat it now. So he just shrugs and turns his head, picking aimlessly at the ground. From the corner of his eye he sees Makoto stand up and go behind a large bush, who comes back seconds later with some sort of bundle. He drops it on the ground in front of Haru and spreads it open to reveal a wide array of fruit and plants.

Haru stares at the food. It doesn’t look bad, but he doesn’t want to take it from Makoto. He wants nothing to do with him, wants nothing to do with _anyone_. But Makoto waits for him to eat anyway, and Haru has no idea why he’s offering him things again.

 _It might be poisonous_ , he thinks, but he recognizes one of the berries in front of him. It’s similar to one he’d seen in the training center and so he picks it up and slides it into his mouth. It’s only then that he realizes how much he really needs to eat.

It’s embarrassing, but he begins popping berry after berry into his mouth, slowly feeling his energy come back. Not only that, but the fruits laid out were actually delicious. His mood dampers, however, when he gets a closer look at what they’re on.

“Where did you get this blanket?”

“Hm? Oh, I found it.”

His voice comes out stern. “Where?”

Makoto blinks at Haru’s tone. “Um, well _I_ didn’t find it, exactly... “ Haru waits for an explanation and gets it when Makoto lets out a whistle. A few seconds later, a white bird flies over to where they are and lands on top of Makoto’s shoulder. “She got it for me.”  

The bird squawks.

Haru’s eye twitches.

“She’s really helpful. I have a healthy amount of supplies now thanks to her.”

“She’s a thief.”

Makoto blinks. “Pardon?”

“This blanket,” he says, gesturing to the material under the fruit. “She pulled it off of me while I was sleeping and wouldn’t give it back.” Haru waits for Makoto to say something, maybe offer giving it back, but frowns when he starts laughing instead. “What’s so funny?”

“Ah, sorry,” Makoto says. Haru doesn’t think he looks sorry at all. “It’s just… I wasn’t expecting that.” He turns to the bird and fake scolds, “You shouldn’t take things from other people, Sweetheart.”

Haru doesn’t understand how Makoto can communicate with the bird. He opens his mouth to ask but snaps it shut when air hits his throat. He feels it dry again and his tongue darts out to moisten cracked lips. A new question enters his mind and he doesn’t really want to bring it up because he doesn’t even want to stay here any longer. A sense of familiarity has already been brought up, what with him practically eating all the food Makoto had, and it feels weird. But still, the question nags at the back of his mind and—

“Are you thirsty?”

Haruka almost chokes on the berry in his mouth.

“I’m sorry if I’m wrong!” Makoto panics. “I just… You looked kind of, uh, dry?” Haru just stares at him and waits for him to continue, to offer up some sort of good news, regardless of whether or not it makes him look desperate. “I would give you some water, but I only had a small bottle of it and drank it all last night…”

_Great._

Haru can feel his heart sink.

“But,” he continues, “Sweetheart here found a water source a couple miles north.” Haru again wonders how he can gather all this from a _bird_ but that’s not his concern right now. “We’re just about to head over there, actually. Do you want to come?”

He does, but if there’s one thing about him that hasn’t changed since he was little, it was his will to be stubborn. He wants to go, but not with Makoto. “I’d rather be alone,” he says, conveniently forgetting that he doesn’t know where it is to begin with.  

“Mm, well I can understand why,” Makoto muses, putting his hand on his chin. He tilts his head slightly. “That’s too bad, though. I think the water source is big enough to swim in.”

Haru’s eyes sparkle at those words and he lowers his guard, images of clear blue filling his mind. He soon realizes that Makoto’s picked up on his interest and quickly turns his head, clearing his throat. “How do you know I like to swim?”

“Your interview.” Haru looks at him. “I’m one of the last to go, so I might as well watch them all.”

“Oh.” Haru hadn’t watched his interview. He had gone straight to his room after getting over with his own. He isn’t even sure he watched the interviews of the ones that went before him, and if he did, he certainly doesn’t remember anything.

Makoto smiles. “Yeah.”

He’s going to regret this. He knows he is, but his body’s aching for _some_ sort of moisture and he’s sure his mouth’s going to seal shut soon. He makes sure to act as though he’s heavily weighing the options, which isn’t true since he’s already decided, and then grabs the match he’d dropped earlier from the ground and puts it back into his bag. “We’ll be allies just this once,” he says, getting to his feet and slinging the bag over his shoulder.

“Just this once,” Makoto agrees, laughing.

 

 

Makoto’s a talker, Haru soon learns.

“Have you run into any trouble yet?”

“No.” Haru doesn’t see why he should tell Makoto anything.

“Oh, well that’s great, Nanase-san. Not too many—”

“Don’t call me Nanase-san,” he says, interrupting Makoto’s stream of words. “Too formal.” Not that he plans to be _in_ formal, but names like that bother him.

“Then, Haruka?”

Haru’s eyes widen slightly and he turns his head to the side, cheeks beginning to heat up. He hadn’t been called _Haruka_ in years and now, hearing it again, it feels way too intimate. He doesn’t say anything, though, figuring that it doesn’t matter. They’ll part ways soon enough; Makoto can all him nothing for all he cares.

The silence that falls after that isn’t an uncomfortable one. The only sounds to be heard are the crunching of leaves below them, the occasional whistle of birds above them, and the scurry of tiny animals along the forest floor. The sky begins to fade to black as they walk and, besides the occasional glance at Makoto and around him to make sure he isn’t being followed or played with, things are relaxing.

That is, until a rapid set of approaching footsteps is heard. Before Makoto can even react, Haru’s grabbing an arrow from his bag and turning around. He gets to his knees and slips an eye closed in concentration.

“Ha—” he hears, but only a second later he’s firing, cutting Makoto off. A heavy _thud_ sounds from not too far away.

Haru, with another arrow ready, walks in the direction of the noise. The leaves crunching behind him suggest that Makoto’s following but he does nothing to stop him. He eventually comes across the body of a large animal, one that looks like some mix between a horse and a lion.

“Aren’t those from the games a few years back?” Makoto asks, voice a whisper.

 

 _“Ooh, Mako-chan’s a smart one… Though I wonder why Rei-chan put that in this year? It doesn’t fit the terrain at all.”_  

 _“Nagisa-kun, it fits the terrain perfectly. The biome is of optimal temperatures for this creature and_ _—”_

_“It doesn’t fit it at all, Rei-chan.”_

_“Nagisa-kun!”_

 

“Are they?” Haru crouches down and attempts to roll over the dead animal. It doesn’t budge.

“Yeah. I mean, I should know, it killed someone from my district.”

“Oh.” Haru stands back up. “Sorry about that.”

Makoto shrugs. “Nothing we can do about it, right?” Haru gives a shrug of his own and starts walking again — he was originally going to use it as food but, if it was something the Capitol altered, who knows what toxins could be in there — with Makoto right on his heels.

“Haruka, that was very impressive.” Haru turns and arches a brow. “Your reflexes and shooting skills. I can see why you got a ten.”

“They’re nothing special,” Haru murmurs, running his thumb along the wood of the bow.

“Better than what I can do,” Makoto insists, and Haru thinks back to the other’s skill.

“Why’d you get a 5 for your training score?” he asks. He has to admit that, if he were to be curious about anything, it was that. There’s no way a man of Makoto’s size couldn’t have shown some feat of strength.

“Well, I’m best with animals, but they didn’t have any to train with…” Makoto begins. “And my other skill, ah, they didn’t find that impressive. One of the gamemakers did say something about it being beautiful though…”

Haru allows himself a small smile at that. “Maybe we had the same gamemakers watching us.”

“I think everyone has the same gamemakers watching them.”

“Mm.”

Haru’s not sure if he believes Makoto’s reasons for his training score. He could be telling the truth, sure, but to him, Makoto also seems like the type to lay low. He can easily imagine him shooting for a horrible score on purpose. The man was from _District 12_ of all places and had the physical traits you’d see from the Careers. He’s sure Makoto could knock someone out without even trying.

“What is it?”

“Hm?”

“Your other skill.”

Makoto smiles. “Maybe I’ll show you one day.” Haru opens his mouth to remind him that the _one day_ has to be before they reach the water, because he in no way is going to associate with him afterwards, but Makoto follows up with, “I could teach you how to get along with the animals, too.”

“I get along with animals fine,” Haru shoots back. He’s actually kind of offended that Makoto would assume otherwise, though he supposes he hasn’t done anything to prove himself. He’s always loved animals, though, regardless of his job in District 4 being to hook a lot of them for a good portion of the day. “The area by my home is littered with cats.”

“I love cats,” Makoto says, grin widening. “But I’ve only ever seen one…”

Haru doesn’t think that makes any sense. “How do you love them if you've only see one?”

“The one that I saw, I had for about a year, but…” Makoto trails off and his grin lessens into something of a sad smile. “Anyway, I love them. But it takes them a while to love you back, so having so many coming to you, it says a lot.”

“I guess,” Haru says apprehensively. “They take all my mackerel, but I’m nice to them.”

“Then maybe you can start being nice to Sweetheart and ask her to fetch you things,” Makoto says, gesturing to the bird still on his shoulder.

“No chance,” Haru mutters.

And Makoto laughs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For present reference and future reference, any italics coming from Nagisa's direction are things he's saying on TV, so anything other than that is him off cameras. Also I'm having fun with this antagonist bird. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. ^^


	4. trust

“How much longer?”

“Um, I think we still have a ways to go…”

“You think?”

Makoto fumbles over his words as he tries to choose the next set of them carefully. Haru gives him a blank stare as he waits, tucking a stray hair behind his ear as he does. They’ve been in complete silence for the past half hour. The sky is now a pitch black and, with no source of light — Haru had earlier suggested using his match for illumination but Makoto had told him to save it, that it could be of greater use later on — they slowly make their way through the forest by feeling their way around the trees.

“So,” Makoto begins, a steady wind rustling his light brown locks. There’s a strand of it that’s been moving about for the last few hours and it’s annoying Haru. He almost wants to reach up and smooth it back for him. “It might be another few hours.”

Haru exhales and cranes his head, looking up at the makeshift stars. “Then we should stop for now and continue after it gets light again.”

“Su— Eh?” Makoto stops in his tracks. Haru turns around and arches a brow, silently asking if there’s something wrong with his suggestion. “Wouldn’t now be the best time to get there?”

“It’s too dark,” Haru says but Makoto still tilts his head in confusion, as if that’s _exactly_ the reason why they should keep going. “We can barely see where we’re going let alone keep watch for other tributes.”

“But we’re dehydrated,” Makoto says, the crack in his voice furthering his point. “It’s better to make the journey when it’s cool…” Haru’s expression doesn’t change and Makoto begins to card his hand through his own hair. “Besides, I doubt anyone will try ambushing us now and taking advan—”

“Makoto.”

“Yes, Haruka?”

Haru shifts where he’s standing. “You’re not wrong,” he murmurs. And he isn’t. Makoto’s plan of attack is actually smart considering their situation, and Haru’s pleasantly surprised. “But it does happen. That’s how both of the tributes from my district were killed last year.”

“Oh.” Makoto frowns. His eyes glaze over as if he’s trying to remember the incident and Haru’s sure he does, sure the _entire nation_ can still replay the deaths in explicit detail. They were cruel, inhumane, and considered to be two of the most gruesome ones in the games’ history. Hooks that the two tributes had found and made fishing lines out of were made to be toys for the Career from District 1 that’d found them. Haru clearly remembers the sound of retching behind him when it had happened. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing we can do about it, right?” Haru echoes. He reaches out and pats the tree closest to him, looking for somewhere to grab, something that can serve as a foothold. He finds it soon enough and, after placing his bow away, begins to scale the trunk. “You can go if you want.” 

Haru can practically hear the gears turning in Makoto’s head. “No, no, you’re right. We’ll get some rest.”

He nods. “Do you know how to climb a tree?”

“...Yeah,” Makoto answers, but Haru doesn’t believe him, not when he had to take a while to think of his answer. _Guess we’ll find out soon enough,_ Haru thinks, swinging himself onto a sturdy branch.

Makoto scrunches up his brows. Haru watches as he places a hand in one of the crevices and hauls himself up, nearly chipping the trunk in the process. Then he starts moving his feet, too, one after the other, making steady progress up the tree. He’s not fast, Haru muses, but he’s climbing up with powerful strides.

It’s characteristic of his build but not of his face and _definitely_ not of his personality.

“Uh, Haruka?” The man in question blinks down and is met with a sheepish smile. “I need help.” The wood beneath Makoto’s fingers is chipping and there’s no way he can switch to another piece without snapping it in half.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks, though it comes out sounding like more of a _What do you expect me to do?_

“Give me your hand?”

Haruka hesitates. It’s not that he doesn’t want to help Makoto, but the guy’s twice his size. It’s hard enough keeping balance dozens of feet in the air; he doesn’t need his arms failing to pull Makoto up. It wouldn’t end well for any of them.

But he can’t _not_ help him.

Right?

Haru considers it for a total of three seconds. Then he’s extending his hand. “Don’t pull me down with you.”

“I’ll try not to,” he laughs and Haru’s about to pull back because there’s no _try not to,_ it has to be a _will not_ , but then Makoto’s hand is enveloping his and it’s not how he imagined it to be _at all_ ; it’s far from it, actually.

Haru comes to the realization that Makoto must be a walking oxymoron.

There’s no way warmth and softness like _that_ can come from hands that one would expect to be rough and firm. But here it is, and a sense of strength is present in the grip but it’s blanketed with such delicacy that it’s almost as though, even if these hands _can_ kill, they don’t want to.

The words _gentle giant_ flash through his mind.

Haru wraps an arm around the trunk of the tree and pulls Makoto upwards, who collapses on the branch next to him. It’s not until Makoto sits up that Haru realizes their hands are still connected and he lets go with a quick jerk.

Makoto smiles at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Thank you, Haruka.”

Haru swallows thickly, pressing his back against the trunk of the tree. He crosses his arms and takes a breath. “We only have a few hours left before sunrise. Sleep.”

“Right.” Makoto makes himself comfortable on the other side of the tree. “But shouldn’t we take turns sleeping? So the other can keep watch?”

Haru sighs. “Do what you want.”

“Okay.” Another small laugh, and then, “Goodnight, Haruka.”

Haru doesn’t want to give him a response but lets out a small grumble of agreement for Makoto’s sake. Coincidentally, he’s chosen the side of the tree facing the wind and parts his lips as cool night air makes contact with his skin. He thinks of the water, of how refreshed his throat will feel after he finds it, and he’s not sure if that train of thought is subduing his thirst or intensifying it.

He closes his eyes and dreams of swimming.

 

 

Haru wakes to the sound of wood snapping.

He ignores it, drifts off to sleep, then wakes again to the smell of smoke. He starts coughing almost immediately and turns his head, grabbing at his throat. It burns like _hell_ and his eyes begin to water.

“Haruka?”

“Ma—” he begins, before realizing the voice is coming from the ground. Slowly, he tilts his head downwards and spots Makoto looking up at him, waving, but with worry clouding his features.

“Are you okay?”

“What are you _doing?_ ” Haru asks, and if he had the voice to speak, he’s sure it would sound a lot angrier. The sun was beating down on them, they hadn’t had water for a day — and in Haru’s case, _days_ \- yet Makoto was building a fire in the middle of the forest. The emotion he couldn’t convey with his voice he made sure to convey through his eyes.

Makoto seems to get the message and rubs at the back of his neck. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to blow the smoke away from your direction but I guess I can’t get to all of it…” That still doesn’t answer Haru’s question. He purses his cracked lips and waits. “I’m cooking.”

“...Cooking?” Haru rasps.

“Yeah, there was a snake and I figured that berries won’t give us the energy we need. And it’s, uh, juicy, so you don’t need to worry about your mouth getting even drier.”

He’s still not completely satisfied but with the reasoning brought to light, Haru finds some of his anger dissipating. He leans forward and stretches his back. Then he slowly lowers a foot and grabs the branch with both hands. “A snake’s an impressive thing to catch.”

“Aah, ahaha, really?”

From the way Makoto’s voice quivers in nervousness, Haru can tell he’s probably slept through a rather embarrassing event.

He doesn’t care to ask what it is.

As he begins to climb down, the shade from the canopy of the tree lessens. A bright ray of sun hits him in the eyes and he stumbles, fingers closing around air as he reaches for another piece of wood. Then he’s falling, and all he can do is hope he doesn’t land on top of the fire or a prickly bush.

His body is brought to a halt three seconds later, but it’s not because he hits the ground. Haru slowly opens an eye and meets green, sparkling in amusement, and that’s when he feels two arms on his body, one circling his back, the other underneath his knees.

“You have to be more careful, Haruka.”

“I _am_ careful,” he retorts, squirming around in Makoto’s grasp. He puts a hand on his chest and pushes. “Now let me— Where’s your shirt?”

“I tied it around my waist,” Makoto answers. “Why?”

Haru’s face begins to redden and he pulls his palm away from Makoto’s bare skin. He squirms around again until he’s put down and then he turns to the fire and the snake, refusing to look Makoto in the eyes.

“Haruka?”

“It’s going to burn if you leave it on there any longer,” Haru says, watching as the meat begins to shade black. He doesn’t wait for Makoto to respond, instead tearing a few leaves from the tree above him. “Get me a piece of bark,” he says, and a crunching noise is heard behind him. A long piece is put into his hands and Haru coats the surface with the leaves then holds it parallel to the snake, using a stick from the ground to flick it from its place. He sets it on the ground and begins grabbing rocks from around him, throwing them on top of the flame until it disappears completely.

“Wow,” Makoto breathes, crouching down beside Haru.

Haru shrugs and sneaks a glance at Makoto. “I did this all the time back home. It’s second nature to me now.”

“District 4 is a good district to be from. When it comes to preparation for the games, I mean,” Makoto says, and Haru can’t disagree, especially since District 4 is third place, right behind Districts 1 and 2. “Sadly, unless there’s a cart of coal that needs to be pulled around here…”

The corners of Haru’s lips curve up in a small smile. “You’re good with animals, though.”

“Part of that has to go to the Capitol,” Makoto says. “Sweetheart wouldn’t understand what I told her if she wasn’t one of those intelligent birds they tried out.”

Haru blows on the snake until it’s cool and pinches off some meat, handing it to Makoto. He takes it graciously and puts it in his mouth. “But they won’t just help anyone.”

“I guess,” Makoto says, accepting another piece that Haru holds towards him.

They eat in silence after that but stop once a canon’s heard. Makoto and Haru look to the sky simultaneously and Haru puts the last of the food in his mouth, getting to his feet and grabbing his bag. “We should probably move now.”

Makoto nods in agreement and stands up. He whistles for the little white bird, and once she’s landed on his shoulder, they start walking again.

 

 

“How much longer?”

“Um, I think…”

“You think?”

“Hey,” Makoto pouts. He stops in his tracks and looks around, hands on his hips.”It should be around here somewhere.”

“Mm.” Haru turns his head every which way until he catches a glimmer of blue behind a thick grouping of trees. He makes a single step in that direction and his eyes widen when his nose picks up on a familiar scent, and then he’s running.

“Hey, Haruka! Haruka!” Makoto yells, running after him. Haru pays him no attention, shoving branches and leaves to the side as he makes a beeline straight for the water. He reaches it almost instantly and stares — it’s _huge,_ just like Makoto had said it would be — and then he’s pulling off his shirt and jumping in.

The coolness spreads over his body like it was waiting for him. He lets out a sigh of relief and starts moving through the water, accepting it like he’s been doing his whole life. For now, he can forget that he’s in the games and pretend he’s at home, because water’s the same everywhere, isn’t it? He closes his eyes and imagines nothing else, only swims and feels so at ease that he forgets that the main reason for coming here was to hydrate himself.

Though he’s beneath the water, Haru still hears a voice call out. “Haruka, what are you— Oh. You found it.” Haru peeks his head above the surface and finds Makoto at the water’s edge, hands on his knees. He’s smiling as if he’s claimed a victory and, when he spots Haru, he straightens up. His smile grows even wider.

Haru watches him take a seat and unhook a bottle from the back of his pants, opening it up and scooping water into it.

That’s when he feels his throat begin to itch again and Haru, reluctantly, swims back to pull himself out. He takes a seat beside Makoto and waits for him to get his share of the drink. Then he’s filling it again and extending it towards Haru, who takes it without a second thought and downs the entire thing in seconds.

A small whine, or moan, or something equally as embarrassing claws its way out the back of his throat as he puts the bottle down. All his insides no longer feel itchy and dry and he can open his mouth and sit there without worrying about the air roughing itself against the insides of his mouth.

“Good, huh?” Haru blinks lazily and tilts his head to the side, lips still parted. Droplets of water drip onto his nose from his hair. Makoto’s smiling at him. “You look content. I haven’t seen you like that before.”

“You haven’t known me long enough to have seen much of anything,” Haru counters. He looks back at the water and his eyes soften, his entire being itching to go back in and surround itself with what he considers home.

Makoto laughs softly and dips his legs into the water. He swings them back and forth and leans back on his hands, a small sigh rolling off his lips. Haru watches him carefully, watches the look in his eyes gradually change.

“Hey, Haruka?”

Haru blinks and keeps his gaze fixed on Makoto. It gives the other permission to continue.

“Did you want to be in these games?”

That catches him off guard. “Why would you think that?”

“I was just wondering. I know District 4’s wealthy and a lot of people there train to be here, and I didn’t know if you were one of them.”

“Ah.” Haru clears his throat. “Well, I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“When my name was called, no one that’d been training volunteered in my place, so…” Haru looks to the side. He swears he sees Makoto stiffen beside him. “I’d never choose to be here willingly, though. It’s stupid to want to give up on your life for something as small as pride.”

Makoto hums. “It’s nice to hear someone say that. The way you see it at home, it looks like a lot of people start to take for granted what they have.”

“And what about you?” Haru asks, taking the attention off of himself. “How did you get here?”

Makoto smiles, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Bad luck.”

Haru blinks, then brings his knees to his chest and looks back out over the water. He inhales and closes his eyes. His hair begins to tickle his face as the wind blows it about.

“You should go and swim again.” The sadness that’d laced Makoto’s voice earlier vanishes, as if it’d never been present. “I heard you mumbling something about swimming in your sleep.”

He’s mortified. “I talk in my sleep?”

“E-Eh, should I not have said anything…?”

Haru digs his fingers into the ground and his bottom lip juts out. His grandmother had told him before that he’d talked in his sleep but that was years ago. He shivers to think what else he could’ve said.

Makoto leans forward and cups water into his hands before splashing it onto his face. He starts rubbing the dirt off his arms and feet then runs a finger over the little white bird, laughing when she begins to peck at it. Haru stares, opens and closes his mouth a few times, and it takes a while for anything to come out.

“Makoto.”

He stops playing with the bird and turns his attention to Haru. “Hm?”

“Thank you. For bringing me here.”

Haru shifts uncomfortably under Makoto’s stare. He’s never liked it when people looked at him for long periods of time, especially not with _that_ big of a smile. “You’re welcome,” he says, and then, “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“Something else?”

Haru hesitates. “Sure.”

“What made you believe me?”

 _I’d like to know the answer to that, too,_ Haru thinks, and maybe some of it has to do with how desperate for water he was, but… “You don’t seem like the type to lie.”

Makoto nods, as if he’s satisfied with the answer. “Well in that case, thank you for trusting me.”  

Haru huffs and begins to inch his way towards the surface again. There’s no better way to hide his face than to shove it underwater, but he stops right before he ducks into it again. Hesitation makes itself clear.

“Haruka?”

“...Haru.”

Makoto tilts his head in confusion.

Haru looks down at the water. “I don’t like Haruka,” he explains. “You like to say my name a lot, and since we’re going to be around each other now, I’d rather hear Haru.”

Makoto perks up, Haru’s unspoken agreement to be allies from here on out stretching a smile across his face. “And if I keep calling you Haruka?”

Haru frowns and turns back to Makoto. “If you call me that, I won’t talk to you anymore.”

Makoto laughs softly.

“Then, Haru it is.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if you've noticed but I have this thing for shoving canon references into fics so if something sounds familiar then chances are it came from the actual series (e.g. the last part of this chapter). Anyway, this chapter was really fun to write, so! I hope it was enjoyable to read. ^^


	5. heat

“They drained it.” 

“It’s not that—”

“All of it.”

“Well maybe—”

“There isn’t a drop left.” Haru crouches down and swipes his fingers along soggy Earth that had once been hidden under water; in fact, that had been under water just _half an hour ago._ Him and Makoto had gone looking for more food — they were unsuccessful in finding animals but were able to strip a bush of nearly all its berries — and now their water supply was gone.

“It’s okay, Haru,” Makoto says. Haru figures distress is clear on his face or else Makoto wouldn’t be so caught up in trying to cheer him up. “We saved a lot of it.”

Haru purses his lips, doesn’t want to say that part of the reason he’s angry is because he can’t _swim_ in it anymore, not that he can’t drink it. Regardless of the situation he’s in, Haru finds that submerging himself helped to ease his troubles, even if for only a second.

“I am curious, though,” Makoto murmurs, tilting his head in thought. “Why now?”

Haru stands back up and wipes his mud-covered fingers on his pants. “Because no one died last night and they want to speed up the process.”

_“Ooh, Haru-chan’s got it, right, Rei-chan?”_

_“Exactly. As fun as these games are, we can’t have long periods of time go by without anyone dying. It takes away from the, er, action.”_

_“Right, right. But… I’m upset in a way. His swimming was really beautiful to watch, wasn’t it?”_

_“As expected of someone from District 4.”_

_“Aw, Rei-chan! Why couldn’t you have just hidden the berries or something?”_

_“What do you think this is, Nagisa-kun!?”_

“So they think taking away our water will kill us?”

“Not from dehydration. They want us to move and run into other tributes.” Makoto’s face pales as the words flow from Haru’s mouth. He frowns at this. “Why do you look so scared? You weren’t when you ran into me.”

“Ah, well…” Makoto rubs at the back of his neck. “I trusted you from the get-go, I guess.”

“That makes no sense,” Haru grumbles, turning his head. He doesn’t know why this amuses Makoto but he hears a soft chuckle behind him and chooses to ignore it, instead grabbing his items from the ground and slinging them over his back. “Let’s go.”

Makoto nods then turns to the bird on his shoulder, slowly swiping a finger along its head. “Do you think you can go and look for more water?” He smiles, eyes crinkling at their corners when the bird flaps its wings excitedly in response. “Thank you, Sweetheart.”

Haru watches the exchange with a sort of fascinated curiosity. Even when the bird takes flight, his eyes are still glued to Makoto, who might just be the nicest tribute he’s ever seen, or at least the only nice one to have survived this long. And when Makoto turns back and catches him staring, eyes widening slightly before his smile softens into something more of a reassurance, Haru flinches as if startled out of a daydream and begins trudging through the arena with Makoto right behind him

 

 

Night falls. 

Haru usually gets on edge around this time, when his sight does little to help him and he has to rely on his other senses. The only thing keeping him from never getting a wink of sleep is the fact that he has to deal with this all the time in District 4. Fishing requires nothing short of a boatload of patience, of steady hands that can detect the lightest tug and sharp ears that can pick up on the smallest of splashes.

So he’s used to it.

Except now it’s different.

In the quickly darkening arena, with Makoto at his side, the both of them making their way through the trees, a shiver runs up Haru’s spine that refuses to settle. Three times, he’s heard a rustling from behind them, and three times, it stops when he turns around.

Makoto seems to pick up on his anxiety because every so often he’ll look at Haru, lips pursed as if fighting the urge to say something. Haru ignores him every time, not in an ill-mannered way, but because he can’t afford a distraction.

Then hears it again.

Haru comes to a stop and holds up his hand, silently urging Makoto to keep quiet. The taller man turns around and scrunches up his brows at Haru’s wandering eyes, then takes a step closer to him. Curiosity seems to get the best of him as he opens his mouth. “Hey, what’s wr— Mmph!”

Haru clamps his hand over Makoto’s mouth and shoots him a glare, holding a finger up to his own lips. Makoto’s eyes widen and Haru takes this as a good sign — that Makoto _knows_ there’s danger nearby for him to be acting like this — and he can feel Makoto’s pulse quickening underneath his touch. The sound of rustling sounds again, and then a sharp _clang_ breezes past Haru’s ear. Behind Makoto, pierced halfway through a tree, metal glimmers.

Words aren’t needed. Makoto and Haru take off running in the other direction, shoving branches and leaves from their paths as they go. The sound of footsteps echoes not too far away.

Haru’s mind is going a mile a minute and he picks up on Makoto’s harsh pants, a second or two behind him. Something in him snaps, like a control has been switched to auto-pilot.

“Makoto, get in front of me,” Haru says hurriedly.

Makoto seems to get into his mind because the next thing Haru’s able to faintly make out is the aggressive shaking of his head. “Then you’ll be in their—”

“Don’t be stupid!” he snaps. “I have a weapon and you don’t!”

“Which is why you should be in front! If something happens to me then you’ll still be able to—”

Another knife whizzes past them and nearly chips Makoto in the head. Haru can make out the nervous bob of his throat, can see the words stopping halfway up his throat, and he can feel his own legs numb for a second. Again, he calls out, “Makoto, in front of me!”

“N-No!” Makoto declares, recovering from his falter.

Another knife is slung, this one grazing the top of Makoto’s arm. Haru sees a long gash appear, red dripping down, and his legs stop on their own. He waits until Makoto runs past him, noticing Haru’s stopped only when he does, and then Haru’s putting his hands on his back and pushing him forward.

“Haru, you can’t—”

“Shut up, Makoto.” His mind’s racing again, hand curling around his bow. It’s true, he does have a weapon, but it’s hard to shoot while running. Not only that, but through the thick cover of these trees, Haru has to get close to have a shot at landing an arrow. But the other tribute works with knives so in a close-combat situation, he has no chance.

_I need to get to an open area._

And, miraculously, he spots one. He has to squint to see it but it’s there, an almost desert-like flat land. He speeds up, making sure to keep himself behind Makoto, and then realizes that he can’t have Makoto run there _with_ him. He’d be exposed.

But, he also can’t just run off _without_ him; who knows who the tribute behind them would trail after.

Haru tightens his lips into a line then reaches an arm back. He grabs an arrow and spins on his heels, pressing his back into Makoto’s so that he can still run backwards without worry of leaves or branches tripping him up. He knows he’s going to miss, but a distraction is all he needs, and so he fires into the thick cover behind him and then quickly turns back around.

“Makoto, run that way,” Haru pleads, attempting to push his body to the right.

Makoto talks through harsh gasps. “And what about you?”

Haru doesn’t answer. “Makoto, _now_.”

Makoto shakes his head again and Haru almost groans, because of _all the times to be stubborn_ … “You’re not going to run off on your own!”

Haru doesn’t have time to deal with this. He’ll feel bad about this later but right now, he’ll feel worse if Makoto’s canon goes off. Haru kicks Makoto’s leg with his own and trips him into a thickly-covered bush. Once he’s sure Makoto’s hidden from view, he takes off towards the barren land.

Half a minute later, he’s stepping into it. Haru immediately turns back around and holds up his bow, arrow pulled back, waiting. His heart’s pounding in his ears and his senses are on high alert, fingers almost shaking around the tip. A figure emerges from the forest line not too long after — he recognizes it as the male from District 1 — a knife between each of his fingers.

He wastes no time. Haru closes an eye, aims, and then...

And then he’s shooting and missing because Haru suddenly feels a searing heat tear through him. His breath hitches and he stumbles, mind going foggy, and _where the hell did that come from?_

His leg burns. But he can’t worry about that right now, because the other tribute is marching at him with weapons raised. Haru takes another arrow and aims.

And then, more heat. Harsher this time and a gasp rips through his throat. Then again. And again. And again.

He distraughtly looks down and finds himself over what appear to be hundreds of ant holes, and he briefly wonders if he’s been bitten by something when a large puff of steam shoots out of the ground and hits him in the face. A pained yell sounds from his mouth and he grabs at his eyes, bow dropping from his hands.

He hears another cry and guesses the tribute in front of him has been hit, too. If he’s going to kill, now’s as good of a chance as any, and so he gets to his knees and blindly feels for the bow. A gust of steam puffs out again as his fingertips scrape the wood and he silently opens his mouth in a scream, in so much pain that his chest is refusing air to leave.

Shakingly, he grabs onto the bow and gets to his feet. He opens his eyes and the world is spinning before him, so fast that he can feel himself beginning to collapse again. A burning travels up his legs again and his mouth drops open in helplessness, arm weakly pulling the arrow back.

Through the spinning, he can still make out a shadow. His breathing is jagged and his chest is on fire, and through it all, he lets go and watches as the arrow pierces the other’s shoulder.

He hazily spots the tribute clutching at his wound and stumbling over a particularly large geiser, which goes off the second he climbs over it. A canon’s sounding a few seconds later and then Haru’s slouching, drained of energy, and his eyes are slipping closed as he struggles to stand on his own feet.

“Haru!”

He hears it, but he can’t move his head. He attempts a step forward and then another blast is shooting out of the ground.

Again, this time more frantic, “Haru!”

He falls to the ground and blacks out.

 

“Rei-chan, you’re being so mean to them,” Nagisa whines, draping himself over the other.

“I’m doing my job, Nagisa-kun.” Rei pushes his glasses up his nose and walks around the room, keeping an eye on Haru and the arms lifting him off the ground. “Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be broadcasting?”

“I’m on break and came down here to see you.” Nagisa pokes him in the chest with a pout. Rei looks appalled. “But all I see is someone trying to blow Haru-chan sky high!”

Rei rubs at his temples. “I don’t _want_ to kill him. But I’ll get fired if I…” He trails off and looks at the screen. “You know it’s like this every year, Nagisa-kun.”

Nagisa pouts again, then turns and climbs up the stairs.

Rei watches him leave, eyes slowly drifting downwards after he does.

 

“Haru, are…. okay…. up?”

“Haru… burn.... open… please.... eyes…”

“Haru…. up… tell…”

Haru’s on the ground. He’s slipping in and out of consciousness and behind his closed lids he can make out a dark figure hovering over him. He tries to open his eyes but they still burn, they _kill_ , and he slips back into darkness.

An hour later, he wakes again. He’s able to narrowly lift his lids and finds himself under a cover of leaves. But the first thing he notices is a familiar brunet above him, his expression contorting into one of pure relief — though the forehead is still riddled with worry lines — and then Haru blinks into focus.

Makoto smiles. “You’re awake.”

He opens his mouth to ask what happened. Makoto answers before he does. “The other tribute died. I ran onto the field as soon as I saw you.”

He opens his mouth to ask why Makoto would do that if there were geisers all over the place. Makoto answers before he does. “My legs were moving on their own. I know it was stupid, but… I couldn’t just stand there, you know?”

He opens his mouth to ask why Makoto isn’t burned. Makoto answers before he does. “They stopped going off after you collapsed? I guess I was lucky in that sense.”

He opens his mouth to ask how his arm is and how his leg is (considering he gave it a pretty hard kick). Makoto laughs and, before he can speak, says, “I’m fine, Haru.”

Then he opens his mouth to ask where they are.

Again, Makoto talks before he can. “We’re at the very edge of the arena.”

That forces the voice out of him. “We need to move,” Haru rasps. His throat feels like fire but at the same time he wants nothing more than to scratch it. “The gamemakers always put more deadly things at—”

Makoto cuts him off. “You’re in no condition to move,” he says and Haru has to swallow the lump in his throat as he feels every burn, every bruise, every scratch and bump on his body swell at the words, and he knows it’s not _really_ happening, but he supposes it’s some sort of warning, some sort of psychological thing keeping him from overdoing it.  

“Oh, and look at what we got.” Makoto draws Haru’s attention back to him as he holds up a silver canister. “A sponsor gift. It’s medicine for your burns and I tried to put some on you while you were resting but… You started thrashing around, so I figured I’d wait.”

Haru blinks. “Who’s it from?”

“Um, I’m not sure? It’s just signed _N_.” Makoto opens it up and shows the yellow cream to Haru, then dips his fingers into it and reaches for his arm.

“Oi, I don’t want you to— aah!” Haru almost shoots into a sitting position at the sting, doesn’t only because Makoto gently holds him down. It’s such a weird contrast, to have warm fingers slowly rubbing ice cold cream onto his wounds, but he barely has time to appreciate how nice it can all feel. He finds that the medicine makes the burn worse for a few seconds and he’s stuck in the repeating process of biting his tongue when it’s applied and letting out a sigh of relief when he feels the burn soothe away.

“Your arms are done,” Makoto announces after a few minutes, then moves his fingers to Haru’s face and starts massaging the wounds on his cheeks away.

These ones don’t hurt as much, or maybe he’s just gotten used to it, and so he carefully watches Makoto’s expression. Then a flare builds in his chest and he doesn’t know why but he’s so _annoyed_ suddenly. “I’ll do it myself.”

Makoto blinks. “Your arms are still healing, I don’t think you should move them.”

“I’ll do it myself,” he repeats.

Makoto sighs helplessly, ignoring Haru’s demand. “So stubborn.”

Haru bites his cheek, gets into a sitting position — Makoto should allow him _that_ at least - then huffs and looks to the canopy above him. He doesn’t understand. Makoto has no weapons, no real skill, no _anything_ that people would see as useful in these games. Yet, he feels as though he’s already been saved by him a few times. The arrows, the water, now…

_Maybe…_

“Oh my god!” A squeak uncharacteristic of the giant build next to him pierces the air and the next thing Haru feels is a set of hands grasp at his shoulders. Makoto’s disappeared from his side in a heartbeat, now behind him, and his face is nestled on Haru’s shoulder just enough that he can feel his breath fan out against the side of his neck.

“Makoto?”

“H-Haru!” he yelps, shaking Haru’s body.

“Oi, Makoto! You’re gonna—”

“HARU IT’S COMING CLOSER!”

Then Haru spots it, a little green snake a few feet in front of them. Haru blinks, then slowly tilts his head to get Makoto’s attention. “Is that it?”

The squeeze he feels gives him his answer.

“Just kill it,” Haru says casually. “Like you did yesterday.”

“Ah, ahaha, well…”

Oh, right.

He knew there was more to it.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t think—”

“Makoto.” His tone holds a sense of finality.

“Well, it was sort of already dead when I found it, and I got Sweetheart to carry it and put it over the fire for me because I couldn’t do it. But only because I wasn’t sure if it was still alive! Ah, well, maybe even then I still wouldn’t have carried it…”

This is exasperating yet amusing to Haru, who doesn’t laugh, but instead tries to reassure the other. “That snake isn’t poisonous and doesn’t attack unless attacked first.”

The pressure on his shoulders releases just a bit.

Haru says teasingly, “So I guess you don’t like _all_ animals.”

“Hey!” Haru can hear the frown in his voice. “I like all animals, but that doesn’t mean I would want to be around all of them. Imagine swimming in front of a shark, Haru…”

Haru almost snorts.

Almost.

“But anyway,” Haru hears, and he turns his head only a fraction of an inch and finds Makoto’s face right there, a gentle smile plastered onto it. It’s _much_ too close but he suddenly doesn’t have the words to speak. “Thank you, Haru.”

“All I did was tell you the truth,” Haru murmurs. He looks off to the side.

Makoto shakes his head. “Not that. Thank you for saving me earlier.” When Haru blinks, Makoto continues with, “If you hadn’t gotten behind me or told me to run, I would’ve went into the geisers, too. And maybe none of us would be here right now.”

Haru feels his throat constrict and his eyes widen, because Makoto’s not wrong. Not one bit. The red marks that litter his skin are proof that he took the majority of the hit protecting him, something he did without much thought. He’s allowing himself to become comfortable around Makoto and he’s not sure how he feels about that.

He swallows thickly. “We’ll rest for a few hours then start moving again. We’re at the edge,” he reminds Makoto.

“Right, right,” Makoto chuckles.

Haru thinks that maybe Makoto _does_ have a useful skill in these games. Maybe he is a lot braver than he lets on, can utilize his strength but chooses to conceal it. Maybe he _can_ kill.

“Haru! Another snake!”

_...or maybe not._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for this chapter being later than usual but classes started up again. ;; I think I'm going to be able to update once a week around the weekend, so! 
> 
> It physically pained me to hurt Haru.


	6. fear

“When I was little, my mother used to tell me the canons were fireworks.” 

“That’s… kind of morbid,” Haru murmurs. He’s on Makoto’s back, arms around his neck, being carried through the forest in the dead of night. He didn’t _want_ to be on Makoto’s back but he was still pretty bruised and burned from earlier. Although he wasn’t in any excruciating pain, when he’d tried to walk, he’d managed two steps before collapsing. Or, he _would’ve_ collapsed had Makoto not been there to catch him.

_“If you want to move away from the edge, you have to let me carry you.”_

And so, here they are, trudging to a safer location.

“Is it?”

“Considering what the canons really mean…”

“Yeah, but sometimes you have to make up things like that,” Makoto says. “It’s hard to tell a kid what really goes on.”

“Mm.” Haru sets his chin on Makoto’s shoulder, unaware of his action. “I was never told anything like that. But even if I was, I’m pretty observant, so I’d have figured out what was happening.”

“Aah, I’m the exact opposite! I was a pretty gullible child,” Makoto laughs. “I loved stories so much, I just about believed everything I heard…”

Haru doesn’t have a hard time believing that. Behind Makoto’s maturity is a childlike innocence that comes out with every word he speaks and everything he does.

“You keep using past tense.”

“Hm?” Makoto hums, tilting his head to the side to look at Haru.

“ _Loved_ stores. I bet you still do.”

Makoto blinks and Haru briefly wonders if he’s said something wrong before Makoto’s laughing. “I’ve been caught red-handed,” he says, and then, “I still love stories. My mom used to tell me a lot before I went to bed, but then I got too old, so I just make my own now.”

“What kind?” Haru asks curiously.

Makoto grins teasingly. “Would Haru-chan like to hear a bedtime story?”

Haru narrows his eyes and huffs. “I change my mind.”

“Maybe later.”

“Keep walking.”

“Actually, I think here’s good enough.” Makoto stops before a rocky wall. “It’s hidden by a lot of trees.”

Haru looks behind him and considers it for a moment. “Here’s fine,” he finally says, then grabs onto Makoto’s shirt for dear life as he feels himself being turned and lowered to the ground.

Haru’s expression, wide-eyed and surprised, must be the funniest thing because Makoto looks about ready to laugh. “I’m sorry, did I put you down too fast?”

“You could’ve warned me,” Haru mutters, letting go of Makoto and landing on the ground with a small _thump._ Makoto says nothing, instead taking his place beside Haru and leaning his head back. It rests atop a small pile of leaves growing out the side and Haru does the same, except he’s not met with the softness of leaves, but with the sharp edges of rock.

He blinks and looks up, and finds that the soft line of green is a few inches above his head. Haru huffs and Makoto blinks an eye open to see what’s wrong, breaking into a fit of giggles when he does.

Haru scowls up at Makoto, not at all amused by how hard he’s laughing. “You have an unfair advantage.”

“Eh? I can’t help how tall I am.”

Haru crosses his arms and curses his genes. He was always under the impression that he was pretty tall but Makoto completely ruined that image for him. He lets his head fall against the rocky wall and watches as Makoto pushes his own further back into the soft leaves.

“You can put your head on my lap, if you want.”

“I am not going to sleep on your lap.”

“Why not?” Makoto asks, and Haru blanches, because Makoto’s tone makes it sound like _he’s_ being the unreasonable one. “I think my legs are pretty soft.”

“Your legs are thick,” Haru answers immediately, which might seem a little weird, because it’s not like he stares at Makoto’s legs or anything. “And even if they weren’t, I’m not doing it.”

Makoto sighs. “So stubborn.”

He then slips his eyes closed and is asleep within a minute, if his light snoring is any indication. Haru sits there next to him, arms still crossed, trying to orient his head in a way that will stop the rocks behind him from jamming their way into his skull.

Nothing’s working.

And so, with a quick side glance to make sure Makoto’s still sleeping, he shifts in his spot. Hesitant, he slowly bends down and lets his head rest atop Makoto’s thighs, then pulls his legs in so they don’t hit the wall. He stays still for a few seconds to test out the feel of it and finds that he’s actually pretty comfortable, and he can easily fall asleep here.

“I guess they are pretty soft,” he murmurs, closing his eyes.

“Told you.”

They snap back open and he tilts his head back to see Makoto smiling down at him, a victory gleaming in his eyes.

“My head slipped here by accident,” he blurts out.

Makoto looks like he doesn’t believe him at all, and Haru doesn’t blame him. He makes to sit back up and suffer through a sleepless night but Makoto softly pushes Haru back down and slips his eyes shut again. “Goodnight, Haru.”

With how quickly his face is reddening, Haru’s glad that one) it’s nighttime and two) he’s facing away from Makoto. “...Goodnight.”

And it’s the best sleep he’s had since he’s entered the arena.

 

Haru’s woken not by the sound of Makoto’s voice, but by the feel of fingers softly running up and down his legs. He blinks his eyes open and it takes him a while to orient himself in space, where he finds himself still sleeping on Makoto’s thigh. He tilts his head down to see Makoto rubbing the medicine they’d gotten on his legs, and the cool pressure makes him sigh.

He tilts his head back, eyes half-lidded and hazy.

“Good morning, Haru.”

“Mmgh,” he mumbles unintelligently.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Mhm.”

“I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“S’fine,” Haru sighs, closing his eyes again. “Feels nice.”

“Oh, uh, okay.” Makoto clears his throat and suddenly sounds very embarrassed. Haru, still in a sleep-induced haze, has no idea why. “I was going to wait until you were awake to put some more medicine on you but Sweetheart found more water. I thought it’d be better to have you healing right away so we could leave earlier.”

“Water?” Haru rasps, suddenly wide awake. “A lot of it?”

 _Big enough to swim in?_ is what he really means to ask, but from the look on Makoto’s face, it seems he’s deduced that anyway. “It’s just a small pond.”

“What a useless bird.”

“Haru!”

“I’m kidding.” He pushes his arms against the ground and hoists himself up, shaking away the grogginess that still remains. Makoto pulls his leg in and starts applying pressure to where Haru’s head had been. Haru frowns. “You should’ve told me to get off if it hurt.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Makoto says reassuringly. “It’s just asleep. It’ll go away in a few seconds.”

“You don’t press down on it if you want to wake it back up,” Haru tells him. “You squeeze it from all around, like this.” He puts a hand on either side of Makoto’s leg and scowls when they don’t reach all the way around. “My hands are too small, give me yours.”

“Mine?”

“Makoto.” Haru waits for him to offer up his hands, and when he does, places them underneath his own. He leads them to Makoto’s thigh and closes them around it, then pushes down. “Keep doing that for a few seconds.”

“Got it,” Makoto nods. He presses down as hard as he can and, surely enough, sighs in relief. “The tingly feeling is going away.”

“Good.”

Makoto removes his hands and starts shaking his leg around. Then he raises his arms above his head and stretches as far as he can before looking back at Haru. A fond smile stretches across his face. “Thank you.”

“Whatever,” Haru murmurs, looking down. “Let’s leave now.”

And they do. After grabbing their things, they begin their journey to more water with a little white bird leading the way. The trek is silent with the occasional _sqwack_ signaling them to turn around, and Haru appreciates it, that he can have a few moments to collect his thoughts.

When they reach the water, it’s to Haru’s displeasure that he finds out Makoto wasn’t lying. The pond is half his size and he can’t fit in it even if he tries.

Makoto takes out their bottle and crouches down, popping open the lid and scooping it into the pond. “Let’s just— woah.”

Haru tilts his head. “What is it?”

Makoto holds up the bottle and Haru sees that the top of it has been completely burned off. “I don’t think this is water.”

The gamemakers must have a thing about not letting Haru have his fun with water. “Acid?”

“Probably. I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t put our hands in here first.” Makoto sighs. “And I was so excited about this place, too. There’s a cliff over there that we could’ve used to see if anyone was coming towards us…”

“Cliff?”

Makoto points in the direction of the cliff and Haru looks around at the barren land, at the rocky terrain, eyes widening. “I know this place,” he says.

“Eh?”

“I was here the first few days.” _And if nothing’s changed…_ “Come on.”

“Where?” Makoto asks, but Haru’s already running and he can hear Makoto scramble to his feet behind him and follow. He brightens up when he hears the familiar splash of water and stops at the edge of the cliff when he reaches it, looking down to see meters of water, just as he’d left it. Makoto catches up with him after a few seconds, hands on his knees as he tries to regain his breath, and follows Haru’s line of vision. “Oh, wow.”

“Yeah.”

“How did you know this was here?”

“I was down there,” Haru says, pointing. “And the ground opened and the entire place started flooding, so I had to climb up here.”

“Oh. Well this is great news, but, uh, how are we going to get the water?”

Haru looks at Makoto with an arched brow, as if the answer is completely obvious. “We climb down there. The water’s calm so we can easily swim in it.”

“A-Ah, I see.”

Makoto chuckles nervously and looks down at the ocean of liquid, green eyes hardening. His lips force themselves into a tight smile and Haru swears he can see his figure tremble, his fingers shake. Haru draws his brows together in worry. “Makoto, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Makoto says, _too_ quickly. “What makes you think I’m not?”

“You’re…” _Shaking_. “...not looking too well.”

“I must be really thirsty,” Makoto laughs.

Haru frowns, because that’s the biggest load of bullshit he’s heard in a while. He’s about to say something else when Makoto locks eyes with him, and then he’s taking a deep breath and Haru can’t look away. After a while, Makoto’s eyes soften again and he turns his head, and only then is Haru broken from his stare. “I’m okay.”

“...Okay,” Haru says cautiously. “Then let’s go.”

Makoto nods and follow Haru’s lead. They sit at the edge of the cliff and slowly find holes to place their feet in, and then they’re turning and grabbing at the edge of the wall. Haru’s about to scale down when he sees Makoto’s fingers shaking _again._

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ve just never climbed down a cliff before.”

“Mm.”

Haru says no more and begins his descent. He’s a lot faster than Makoto and finds himself stopping for him quite a few times, but he doesn’t mind.

“We’re almost there.”

“Yeah.”

“Just a few more steps.”

“I kn— Haru!” Makoto yelps when he loses his grip. His right hand slips out of the hole he’d tried to grab and suddenly he’s hanging onto the wall with only two fingers. His breathing turns erratic and he panics, desperately trying to grab back on. “Haru!”

“Don’t move too much, you’ll just make it harder to stay up,” he warns, which makes Makoto panic _more_. “Swing your arm up and try to—”

“I’m trying! I can’t!”

Haru purses his lips. “Even if you do fall, you’ll be fine. You’re landing in water.”

“I… I’m…!” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Haru, please help me!”

“...Makoto?” Haru sees the pure fear in his eyes and a wave of confusion flows over him. But he doesn’t have time to think about that, _can’t_ think about that, when Makoto’s panicking that much. So he starts climbing back up and extends his hand when he gets closer. “Grab onto me.”

“I-I can’t,” Makoto says, voice barely above a whisper.

Haru thrusts his arm forward. “You can, Makoto, come on.”

“I-I’m… H-Haru!” His strength runs out and his fingers lose their grasp on the wall, and then he’s falling and splashing into the water.

Haru’s heart drops. “Makoto, it’s okay! Just swim back up!”

“Makoto!”

Still no response.

“Makoto?”

When he still doesn’t resurface, Haru swallows the lump in his throat and pushes himself off the wall. In no more than a second he’s diving into the water, and the burns on his body must still be sensitive because he almost passes out when he goes under. Then he’s opening his eyes and looking around, trying to catch sight of Makoto. He finds him towards the bottom, arms flailing, and he’s struggling _so much_ , acting like he’s up against waves instead of calm water.

Haru goes towards him immediately and grabs onto his arm. He tries swimming back up but he’s going a lot slower with Makoto’s weight on him, and with Makoto’s thrashing, he keeps getting pulled back down.

Then the thrashing stops, and Haru turns to find Makoto’s lips parted.

He panics, a surge of adrenaline shooting through him. Haru holds Makoto’s arm tighter and kicks his legs as hard as he can as he swims towards the surface. His muscles are tiring, his eyes are starting to sting, but he breaks the surface eventually and pulls Makoto above it. He looks around for somewhere to put Makoto down but it’s _all water_ and he can’t help him while floating.

And so he starts swimming, not knowing where he’s going, because this has to end _somewhere_. There has to be land for them to step onto at some point.

He finds that land twenty minutes later, and by then, Haru’s so tired that it’s a wonder he hasn’t drowned them both. Weakly, he steps onto sand, his legs shaking with the effort of tugging a guy twice his size behind him. When they’re far enough away from the water he collapses onto the ground and catches his breath. He feels like his entire body is burning.

“Ma...koto....?” he breathes, looking at the man beside him.

Fortunately, he’s still breathing, and that’s all Haru cares about right now. He pushes himself off the ground and hovers over Makoto, shaking him gently to wake him up. “Makoto?”

Still nothing, and Haru finds himself deciding to stay by Makoto’s side until he gives off some kind of response. He carefully watches the brunet and wonders if he should’ve descended the cliff alone, because there was obviously something wrong with Makoto when Haru’d first brought it up.

_But I didn’t do anything about it._

“Stupid, stubborn Makoto,” Haru murmurs.

After an hour of no response, Haru decides to do something  useful with his time, and so he gathers all their items — wet, but it’s better than nothing — into a pile. He frowns at their lack of weapons: there’s a knife and an arrow, only one, because he’d used a majority yesterday. There’s no way they can defend themselves now if they get ambushed.

“Haru...ka…”

Haru’s breath hitches and he drops everything in his hands and runs to the voice behind him. Makoto’s trying to sit up and Haru quickly pushes him back down so he doesn’t strain himself. “Makoto? Are you okay?"

“I’m fine,” he coughs, slowly opening his eyes. “What happened?”

“You fell in the water and blacked out,” Haru explains, putting his hand on Makoto’s chest to feel his heartbeat. “I had to go in after you.”

“Ah.” He looks away from Haru. “I’m sorry."

“Sorry?” Haru can’t believe this guy. “You don’t need to apologize. You’re the one who was in danger.”

“But now we’re somewhere else completely, and you must be exhausted. I’m—”

“If you say you’re sorry one more time, I’ll sit on your face.”

Haru’s completely serious when he says this but Makoto apparently doesn’t think so, who starts laughing as much as he can with a dry throat. “Right, I’m so— Uh, I mean, will do.”

Haru hums in satisfaction, but then he’s back to being careful in a flash. Hesitantly, he asks, “Makoto, is there anything I should know?”

Makoto’s pulled from his thoughts. “Hm?”

“About what happened back there.”

Makoto’s demeanor changes. “Oh, maybe I’ll tell you later. We should probably rest for now.”

“Makoto, I need to—”

“I’m really tired. It’s not every day you almost drown.”

“Makoto, please—”

“And you must be exhausted, too.” Makoto smiles at Haru and Haru bites his lip, not at all pleased with the way Makoto’s dodging the question. “Let’s gather our energy first.”

Haru decides there's no point in arguing. “...Fine.”

“Great. We shouldn’t sleep that long. An hour should be fine.” Haru nods in agreement and watches as Makoto turns his back towards him. “Then, I’ll see you in an hour, Haru.”

“Yeah.”

Haru watches Makoto until his breathing becomes steady a minute later. He doesn’t sleep, instead thinks about Makoto’s face when he’d fallen into the water, knows that _something_ is wrong and it’s gnawing at the back of his mind.

His eyes waver as he stares at Makoto.

He doesn’t know why he’s pretending to be asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying so hard not to make the ending sound like Episode 6 but it was a struggle. Also I wrote this entire chapter while listening to Elastic Heart, I've had it on repeat for days, someone please save me.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed reading. ^^


	7. a new ally

“H-Help! Help me!" 

At some point in time, Makoto had dozed off, and for the last ten minutes, this is all he’s been doing. The first two times, Haru tried to wake Makoto up from his nightmare and tell him that everything was alright.

_No, Makoto, you’re not drowning._

_No, Makoto, I’m not drowning._

_No, Makoto, Ran and Ren — whoever they are — aren’t drowning._

But, despite Haru’s efforts to shake Makoto awake, he doesn’t get up. He just relaxes a few moments later, drifts off to sleep, and then the cycle repeats. Haru resorts to leaving Makoto alone and waiting for him to wake by himself, which he does, an hour later.

“Makoto?” Haru asks cautiously, taking slow steps towards him. He’s pretty sure the other is awake but considers that he may be sleepwalking. “Are you up?”

“Mmh,” is the answer he gets and Haru lets out a slow breath. “How long was I asleep?”

Haru sits down beside Makoto. “Not long.”

“Good.” Makoto groggily sits up and rubs at his eyes. He blinks them open and looks around, expression changing a little as he remembers where they are. Haru expects him to do a lot of things — ask how he is, ask for water, ask if anything happened while he was asleep —  but what he doesn’t expect is for Makoto to whistle, smiling when his little white bird flies over and takes its place atop his shoulder. “Hello, Sweetheart.”

Haru blinks, then sighs. “Of all the things for you to do...”

“I was worried about her.” Makoto grins sheepishly. “Did anything important happen?”

Haru parts his lips in confusion. What kind of a question is that? What kind of an answer is he supposed to give? “Not while you were sleeping,” he says, making sure to emphasize the last part. “Are you feeling better?”

“I am. Thank you, Haru.”

“Don’t thank me.”

“Right, sorry.”

“Don’t—”

“Don’t apologize, I know.”

Makoto smiles when Haru’s cheeks puff up in silent protest.

“Are you hungry?”

“Ah, not really. I am thirsty, though,” Makoto says, making a show of scratching at his throat.

Haru nods and gets up, scooping some water into their bottle, now half the size, and brings it over to Makoto. Makoto graciously accepts it and downs it in seconds. Haru keeps his gaze locked on Makoto, looking for a crack, a falter, _anything_ that would tell him that Makoto was still shaken up about what had happened, but Makoto looks as good as new and Haru’s not sure if he should bring it up again.

He tosses the idea around in his head a few times. Maybe Makoto really is over it.

_Or maybe he’s just good at hiding it._

And, as Haru remembers the strong face Makoto had put on right before they’d scaled the cliff, he opens his mouth with resolve. “Makoto.”

Makoto wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes, Haru?”

“You said you’d tell me what happened after you woke up.”

The look that flashes across Makoto’s face ensures that Haru won’t let him slide out of this one.

“It’s not really important, Haru…”

“It seems pretty important to me.”

“But it’s not! It’s really silly and I—”

“Makoto, please.” Haru does feel bad for pushing the subject because if Makoto _really_ wanted to tell him, he would, wouldn’t he? This isn’t something Haru has the right to try and coax out of him but he also doesn’t want to put Makoto in any other situations he won’t like.

Makoto seems to spot the determination in Haru’s eyes because he’s sighing a second later and crossing his legs.

“I guess you didn’t hear about the incident that happened a few years ago in District 12,” Makoto begins, and Haru shakes his head. “I don’t blame you. The Capitol doesn’t really let news travel between us.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, back home, we don’t have a lot of landmarks,” Makoto laughs. “We’re surrounded by forests but you aren’t allowed to go in those, so we’re stuck going between our homes and the mines, which I don’t mind! But, the little kids were getting restless and wanted to go on little trips. They made cute banners and wrote speeches to try and get the adults to let them go on their adventures. They thought that would be enough since, ah, they don’t really know the power that the Capitol has over us.”

Makoto stops for a second, and Haru nods for him to continue.

“Since our district is small and there isn’t much for any of us, we’re all really close. All the kids are our family, so imagine fifty of them being upset! It was really heartbreaking,” Makoto whines.

Haru smiles a little at that. He can easily imagine Makoto getting worked up over it.

“So we all decided to do something for them, and the only place we can take them are the mines, since they’ve been everywhere else. It was a hard decision because that area is dangerous and a lot of us were worried, so to compromise, we thought it would be a good idea to only take them where the carts unload. It’s in a little area away from where all the work happens.”

Makoto stops to take a breath and Haru’s fingers twitch towards his shoulder, but they curl in on themselves before he can reach out and touch it.

“Our idea turned out to be a good one. They were all having fun, they weren’t in the miners’ way, and they were all talking about wanting to do it again. But then… out of nowhere, a water pipe that the Capitol has running underneath our district blew, and…” Makoto’s eyes start to blanket with tears. “I grabbed three kids and started climbing, and when I reached the surface, I put them down and was about to go back and get more, but… The entire mine…”

“...Had already filled up,” Haru finishes, voice barely above a whisper.

The smile that crosses Makoto’s face is so _sad_ and Haru’s mouth dries when he sees it.

“Makoto.”

“Yes, Haru?”

“Are you afraid of water?”

Haru’s sure he’s hit the nail on the head because Makoto jolts a little where he’s sitting. He seems surprised that Haru’s figured out that much, and then he nods. “Did you notice anything weird when we first bumped into each other here?”

“You were willing to give me your weapons.”

“Not that!” Makoto whines. “My clothes weren’t wet, because I didn’t dive for the Cornucopia. I mean, sometimes people don’t do it so they don’t get caught up in the blood bath, but in my case… it’s because I’m afraid of water.”

Haru swallows. “Then why did you climb down? If you’re afraid?”

He doesn’t expect Makoto to answer — he’s grateful that he even shared this much to begin with — but then Makoto looks at him and smiles, so small that it may not even be there, but so genuine because Makoto’s eyes soften. “I guess seeing your face took care of it.”

Haru blinks. “The heck does that mean?” he mumbles, turning his head.

“It’s weird, huh?” Makoto laughs. “I can’t explain it.”

Nor does he want Makoto to, because his heart is beating fast enough already. “We should get going. We’ll look for food but stay close to the water’s edge so we don’t lose it.”

Makoto gives Haru a knowing smile.

Haru ignores it.

 

 _Not again_ , is the first thought that pops into Haru’s head when he hears footsteps trailing behind them. Makoto’s noticed it too because he starts walking a little faster, looking behind him every few seconds with a frantic look on his face. 

Haru immediately starts looking around for somewhere they can run — preferably somewhere that hot steam can’t shoot out of the ground — but can’t find anything. His new plan is to keep walking and lose the tribute behind him in the trees, but that also gets trashed when they reach a barricade of trees.

They have nowhere to go, and the footsteps behind them are getting closer.

“Makoto, stay still.” Makoto freezes, but then he tries to place himself between Haru and whoever is approaching. Haru turns around and takes out his bow, then pulls back his arrow the moment the leaves in front of him are pushed back. “One step forward and I’ll shoot.”

“Wow, what an asshole,” a voice mutters, and Haru _knows_ that voice. A second later, a familiar redhead appears from behind green with someone else right behind him. “Not even a hello?”

“...Ryuu?”

“Rin.”

“Right.”

“Can’t even remember my name.” He tilts his head back and lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Unbelievable.”

Haru keeps his arrow pointed, not wanting the distance between Rin and him and Makoto to get any shorter. “Why were you following us?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

Haru narrows his eyes. “You would’ve revealed yourself sooner.”

Rin rolls his eyes. “What did you want me to say? ‘Hi, please don’t shoot me, I want to have a friendly chat?’”

“It’s better than sneaking up on us.”

“He has a point, big brother.”

“Gou, whose side are you on!?”

“Um.” Makoto clears his throat, making his existence known. “Who are you?”

Rin grins, flashing his set of teeth. “Matsuoka Rin, District 2. This is my sister, Gou.”

“Oh, nice to meet you two!”

“You see, Haruka?”

“Haru.”

“Whatever. _That_ is how you interact with people,” Rin says, smacking a hand down on Makoto’s back. Makoto lurches forward a bit and Haru bites his tongue. “You should learn a thing or two from… What’s your name?”

“Makoto.”

“Right! Totally knew that.”

Makoto smiles, a little confused, and Haru grunts in frustration. This was getting way too cozy for his liking. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Oh, that. I want you to reconsider what you told me in the training center.”

“No.”

“Come on!”

“No.”

“I know you want to.”

Haru sets his jaw. “I don’t.”

“Don’t want to what?” Makoto asks.

“I asked him to partner up with me in the games and he ignored me,” Rin shrugs. “Put up this big front, like he was a lone wolf or something.”

“I don’t want allies.”

“Then why is Makoto with you?” Rin challenges.

Haru freezes. His usual quick wit is nowhere to be found in this case and he sees Makoto tilt his head in wonder, and next to him, Rin’s smirking.

“Bingo.”

“I change my mind. I just don’t want to be allies with _you_.”

“Ouch.”

“I think we should partner up with them, Haru.”

Haru turns to Makoto with wide eyes, mouth dropping open in shock. “What?”

“It’s always better to work with more people, right?” Makoto looks at Rin. “He has a spear in his hand so he can fight, and Gou-chan looks like she has herbs, so I’m guessing she’s good with medicine.” Gou lights up when Makoto says that. “We could use their help.”

“No.”

“But—”

“ _No_ ,” Haru stresses. “I’m not going to trust this guy with my life.”

Rin snorts. “Well that’s selfish of you. Do you expect to protect the both of you with one arrow left? The moment someone gangs up on you, you have to pray that they’re alone _and_ you have perfect aim or you’re done for.”

Haru grits his teeth. Rin’s right, but it doesn’t mean he’s going to give in. “I can make more arrows.”

“And how long would that take you?”

“I’d finish before anyone found us.”

“But _I’m_ already here.”

And to emphasize his point, Rin takes his spear and presses the tip of it against Haru’s chest. Haru immediately pulls back his arrow and aims for Rin’s head, and the both of them are in deadlock, narrowing their eyes at the other.

“W-wait!” Makoto holds up his hands and tries to get between them. “No one is killing anyone!”

“Relax, Makoto, I’m just trying to prove a point.” But Rin doesn’t move from his spot, and Haru doesn’t move from his. “What do you say, Haru?”

Haru hates this. He hates that he now has to account for two more people, he hates that they’re Careers, he hates that he can potentially be putting him and Makoto in more danger.

And above all, he _hates_ that Rin’s right.

“We’re only going to stay allies until I’m done making more arrows.”

“Fine by me,” Rin grins. He holds out his hand. “Welcome to the group.”

Haru hesitantly shakes his hand, then Makoto does the same.

“By the way, do you guys like sharks?”

 

“I didn’t know that you could make arrows. 

Makoto and Haru are currently sitting by the water’s edge. Their search for food has stopped because Rin and Gou have more than enough for all of them. Haru doesn’t mind that they came back early; it gives him more time to work on his arrows.

“I make them a lot at home,” Haru explains, wrapping a twig in leaves and sharpening a rock against the ground. He brings the stem of a flower up to his mouth and rips it in half with his teeth, then ties it around the very top.

Makoto watches with fascination. “Why would you need arrows in District 4, though?”

“You don’t. I just use them.” When Makoto tilts his head in confusion, Haru elaborates, “I talked about it a little in my interview. I have a special way to catch fish.”

“You use a bow?”

Haru shrugs. “It’s faster. And it hurts them less.”

“So… you _do_ harpoon them out of the water.”

Haru turns to Makoto with arched brows. “I don’t harpoon them out of the water. I have to go into the lake and get them after I’ve shot them.”

“Ah.” Makoto leans back on his hands. “One day, you should teach me how to fish.”

“Sure,” Haru says, mostly to humor him. But he thinks that, if he ever has a chance to, he wouldn't mind. 

They sit in comfortable silence for a minute, and then,

“Yo, Makoto!”

Haru rolls his eyes as Rin’s voice carries from behind them. Makoto turns around and waves at the approaching man. “Hey, Rin.”

“Listen.” Rin crouches down beside them. Haru ignores him and continues working on his arrows. “What can you do?”

“...What can I do?”

“You know. What’s your skill? Can you rip off heads no problem? Pull trees out of their roots and throw them at people?” Makoto’s mortified at those suggestions and increasingly shows that as Rin continues down his long list of gruesome skills. “What can you do? Haru even told me in the training center that I should choose you as an ally.”

Makoto looks at Haru. “He did?”

_Thanks, Rin._

“Yeah. So, now that we’re comrades, spill.”  

Rin looks interested in finding out what feat of strength Makoto has. Haru almost smirks at what’s coming and turns his head to watch Rin’s expression.

“Um, well, I don’t do anything like _that,”"_ Makoto fumbles. “My skill is, uh, animals?”

“...Animals?” Rin repeats. “What, like, you get them to do your dirty work for you?”

“No! I ask them to get me food and search for water and things like that?” Makoto gulps. “I can sort of talk to them. That’s my skill.”

Rin’s silent for a long while.

“Are you calling yourself a prophet?”

“No!” Makoto panics, waving his arms wildly. Haru actually snorts at that and turns his head, body starting to shake with silent laughter. “I’m just really good with them!”

“Well that’s great but do you have any _useful_ skills?” he asks. Makoto frowns, offended, and Haru glares at Rin. “Hey, don’t get mad at me! I’m trying to help!”

“I don’t know how to fight, if that’s what you’re asking,” Makoto says.

Rin stands up and puts his hands on his hips. “Well that has to change. You have muscles that big and you’re not using them? It’s a shame. I bet even Haru thinks about that.”

“I do not think about his muscles,” Haru grumbles.

“I was talking about you thinking that Makoto’s not using his full potential, but okay, yeah, thanks for _really_ getting us into your head.”

Haru’s face starts to burn.

“Get up, Makoto. I’m going to teach you how to fight.”

“I don’t have a weapon,” Makoto says, coming up with a quick excuse.

“That’s fine. You can use my spear. Up.”

Makoto hesitantly gets to his feet and stumbles back a bit when Rin thrusts the handle of his own weapon into Makoto’s hands. “You’re not going to use the sharp end because I don’t need you killing anyone by accident. Just use the handle.”

“Okay,” Makoto says, gripping it.

Haru stops what he’s doing and turns, watching the training session.

“Now, take this stance,” Rin says, spreading his legs apart, “and hold it above your head at an angle.” Makoto copies his movements. “Now I want you to move your right hand down as fast as you can and try to hit me.”

“W-What!?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll dodge. Now go.”

Makoto swallows and turns to Haru. Haru nods encouragingly, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to see, too.

Makoto takes a deep breath then swings the end of the spear like Rin told him to. Rin’s eyes widen and he has to trip himself and fall onto the floor to avoid the handle, holding his arms up to stop Makoto. Makoto looks about ready to begin a stream of continuous apologies and Haru looks stunned.

“Holy shit,” Rin mutters, dusting himself off and standing back up. “You almost took my head off. Have you ever handled something like this before?”

Haru looks at Makoto curiously. Has he?

“Um, well, I’m on sweeping duty a lot in my home, so… I know how to hold a broom…”

Haru blinks. Rin barks with laughter.

“I like this guy! I see why you chose him as an ally, Haru.” Haru opens his mouth to protest but Rin gives him no room to talk. “This is _great_ , Makoto. You’ll be able to kill in no time.”

“Uh, yeah,” Makoto says, shifting in his spot, uncomfortable. 

Haru steps closer to Makoto and puts a hand on his shoulder. He knows that Makoto would never willingly kill someone and is sort of angry that Rin would assume something like that, but he supposes it's okay since he still doesn't know Makoto like he does, and...

_Woah._

_Know Makoto like he does?_

“Don’t listen to Rin. You don’t have to kill anyone.”

“You can’t be so sure. Crazy things happen in these games.” Rin stretches his arms above his head. “And besides, it’s good to have a backup. Now you won’t have to do all the fighting for the both of you.”

Haru opens his mouth to protest _again_ but Rin’s words seem to spark something in Makoto, who stands up straighter. “Let’s keep practicing.”

Haru furrows his brows in confusion.

“Makoto, you don’t need to—”

“Yes he does,” Rin interrupts. “Now let’s try that again, but this time, I’ll definitely dodge it.”

Rin doesn’t dodge the one after that.

Or the one after that.

Or the one after that.

Haru finds himself enjoying this a lot more than he should.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have once again included High Speed quotes because I am High Speed trash. Things will also start to pick up from here on out, so! I hope you all enjoyed reading. ^^


	8. traitor

“How can you be so happy all the time?”

Haru finishes another arrow and sets it at his side. He’s made ten of them now and normally, that would be more than enough. Considering how quickly he burned through his first set of them, though, he figures he’d rather be safe than sorry.

Makoto is sitting cross-legged, right across from him, pulling apart bits of wood to give to Haru. With this system, Haru’s been able to crank them out a lot faster.

And he’ll sort of admit that it’s a nice feeling, too.

Makoto looks up with furrowed brows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, this isn’t exactly the happiest situation to be in.”

“Oh.” Makoto tilts his head in thought and swipes his tongue along his bottom lip — Haru notices he does that a lot, not that he stares at his mouth or anything — and rips apart more wood. “I’ve just always been like that.”

When Haru says nothing, Makoto elaborates, “I’m an optimistic person.”

Haru snorts. “I figured that.”

“Well, it’s true! I like finding the best in everything.” He puts down what’s in his hands and smiles, and Haru does the same, giving Makoto his full attention. “District 12 is the poorest district to live in but I wouldn’t move anywhere else. I think it’s the most beautiful of them all.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you saw the river we had in District 4,” Haru murmurs. A certain feeling swoops in his stomach as he remembers it. “I practically lived there.”

“It’s that good?”

“It’s perfect,” Haru says, and a smile curves at his lips. He gets lost in his thoughts for a minute, imagining the sparkling water, the distinct smell, the seconds that turned into minutes that turned into _hours_ as he sat by its edge.

When he finally looks back up, Makoto’s eyes are softened. “You only ever have that look on your face when you think about water.”

Haru frowns. “What look on my face?”

“You know! The… eh… that look where… um.” Makoto fumbles over his words. “A peaceful, or, daydreamy look… Like you’re about to slip out of reality.” He pauses and runs over that line again. “N-Not that you’re crazy! I didn’t mean it like you’re insane, or—”

“I didn’t even _think_ that it sounded like that, Makoto.”

“Oh, thank god,” Makoto breathes, voice breaking into a high-pitched sigh of relief. “I overthink what I say sometimes.”

“You worry too much.”

“I do, don’t I? I guess I’m not as good with words as you are, Haru.”

“Stop lying,” Haru scowls, because if anyone’s not good with words, it’s him, and just to change the subject, says, “The river back home is big and stretches across the entire district. But the entire thing isn’t full of fish, so a lot of people live near the banks where they show up. Not me, though. I’m one of the few who has a home away from everyone else.”

“Do you wish you lived near the banks?”

Haru shakes his head. “I wanted to live away from them.”

Makoto tilts his head in confusion.

“I used to live near the banks, but I could never swim there. It was always full of people and their nets and hooks and I was just getting in their way,” Haru shrugs. “My grandmother didn’t like all the noise, either, so she decided to move away from it all. My parents stayed because they have jobs to do, but I asked if I could go with her.”

Makoto hums. “And she said yes.”

“My parents were fine with it, so I went.” Haru dips his fingers into the sand below him and starts swirling it around. “We found a place where fish still swim, and the water is clear and blue. She said that it matched me, but the reason is emba—”

“Blue as your eyes, right?”

Haru freezes, then his gaze darts up. “How did you know?”

“Ah, well… Just a feeling?” Makoto smiles sheepishly. “They’re actually the first thing I noticed about you.”

Haru opens his mouth wordlessly, red beginning to dust his cheeks, and then he turns his head and looks at the sand. “Makoto…”

“If your grandmother is right, then I’d love to see it one day.”

“Sure,” Haru mumbles, and when he looks back up at Makoto, he notices that he’s smiling. It somehow makes Haru smile, too, and for a while they just look at each other, unmoving.

_“You know, Rei-chan, I get really interested in their stories.”_

_“You always get interested in people’s stories.”_

_“But this time it’s different! It’s not ‘Oh I’ve killed a guy before’ or ‘I once made a bomb by accident,’ it’s really calming stuff. Don’t you agree?”_

_“...I guess.”_

“What’s this I hear about blue things?”

Haru’s good mood disappears as Rin saunters over to them. Makoto looks completely okay with it and even waves.

Rin plops himself down between the two boys. “If we’re talking about the bluest things we’ve ever seen, then I’d have to say Haru’s face when I told Makoto to put his shirt back on earlier.”

Makoto gulps. “Wait, do you me—”

“Rin, shut up.”

“Or maybe the fishnet stockings they had your district wear during the tribute parade.”

“Oh, I remember those,” Makoto nods, and when Haru looks at him with wide eyes, goes, “Not that I was—! There was a really big screen, and they zoomed in, I— Oh my god.” Makoto buries his face in his hands.

“What do you want, Rin?” Haru asks, struggling to sound nonchalant but he’s sure it cracks _somewhere_.

“Right, that.” Rin stretches his arms above his head. “Gou and I just finished gathering more berries but that’s not going to give us much energy, so I need you to go and hunt with me.”

“No.” There’s no chance in hell that Haru’s going to leave Makoto alone.

Rin groans. “And why not?”

“I’m injured,” he lies.

“...Injured,” Rin echoes, raising a brow.

“You’re injured, Haru?” Makoto asks, face clouding in worry. “Where?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Haru blurts out. “I just hit my side on a tree and now it hurts a little when I move. I’ll be better soon.”

Haru doesn’t like the look on Rin’s face.

He looks like he can smell the bullshit coming off of him.

“Fine, then if you’re not coming with me…” Rin walks over and puts his hand on Makoto’s shoulder. “Come on, big guy.”

“But I’ve never—”

“Your fighting’s gotten a lot better, thanks to me, of course. You’ll be fine.”

“But I don’t want to kill them…”

Rin sighs and cards his hand through his hair. “I just— Oh my, okay, _fucking okay_ , I’ll kill them and you can just be my bodyguard or something.”

Makoto considers Rin’s offer, hesitates, but stands up anyway. Haru widens his eyes and gets up in a flash to prevent Makoto from going with Rin, and Rin smirks right when he does.

“I thought you were hurt.”

“I feel better.”

Rin snorts. “Alright. Then you and I will go and Makoto can stay here with Gou. It shouldn’t be a problem either way. There’s not many of us left so one or two tributes are going to die every few days, at the least.”

“That slow?” Makoto asks.

“Yeah. My guess is that, around day twenty, the gamemakers will start getting impatient and just bring this place to hell to get it over with. Unless something happens, but I doubt it.”

The three of them then walk over to where they’ve set up camp. Gou looks up when they get closer and smiles, holding up a handful of red and blue fruits. “Look what we got!”

“They look delicious, Gou-chan,” Makoto praises.

“Right? I found them. Big Brother kept trying to pick up poison ivy.”

“Gou!”

“What, don’t want to be embarrassed in front of your new friends?”

Rin groans. “Can you believe this?”

Makoto laughs. “I know what it feels like, Rin.”

Haru frowns — what does Makoto mean by that? — and is about to ask when Gou suddenly gets off the ground and walks over to Rin. She steps in front of him and puts a hand on his chest.

 

“Rei-chan!” Nagisa jumps out of his seat and runs over to the megane. “Rei-chan, we have to help them! 

“Nagisa-kun! You can’t expect me t—”

“REI-CHAN, LISTEN TO ME.”

Rei presses the tips of his fingers against his nose. “My job is not to help tributes!”

 

Haru raises a brow at Rin’s sudden silence and watches as he slowly leans over and whispers something into Gou’s ear. Her eyes widen and she looks ready to argue, but then Rin’s throwing her a look and she nods instead. Slowly, she bends down and grabs at her things, then walks behind the treeline.

The next few seconds go by in slow motion.

Haru sees Rin lift his spear and turn towards Makoto. Haru sees Makoto look at Rin in confusion. Haru sees Rin lift his spear, flip it around, and smack it down on Makoto’s neck.

Haru sees Makoto’s lips part.

Haru sees Makoto’s eyes slip shut.

Haru sees Makoto collapse onto the ground.

Blood rushes through Haru’s head and it’s spinning, spinning so wildly he’s not sure how he’s still standing straight. His fingers shake around the bow he’s holding as he looks at Makoto’s body, unmoving. Then he looks at Rin, who has the nerve to look _p_ _leased_ with himself.

“You…” Haru can’t even form sentences right now, eyes wide. “Makoto…”

_Makoto, Makoto, Makoto._

He thinks his name three times and each time, the name echoes louder in his head, pounding into his skull.

“Hey, Haru—”

Rin’s voice snaps what little control Haru has left and he lunges for him, tears springing to his eyes. “You _idiot_ ,” Haru yells, sending Rin to the ground. “Are you fucking crazy!?”

“Maybe,” Rin says, eyes sparkling in amusement. “But you need to calm down.”

“Why!?” he shouts. He grabs the collar of Rin’s shirt in his hands and grits his teeth. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you!”

Rin tries to shrug himself out of Haru’s grasp but his shaking hands just grip him tighter. “Listen, we should just—”

“There is no _we_ anymore.” Haru reaches back and grabs his bow and arrow, having the weapon pulled back and aimed at Rin’s chest in a second. “You have three seconds to explain.”

“Or what?”

“I will shoot you,” Haru promises, voice dripping with venom.

Fear flashes through Rin’s eyes for the briefest of moments and then he’s grabbing the tip of Haru’s arrow and pulling him down. Haru kicks Rin’s hand and pulls the arrow back further, moving the aim up to his head.

Rin’s gaze hardens and he twists his body so violently that Haru’s falling backwards onto the ground. He loses his breath for a second and the next thing he hears is Rin screaming in his face. “Do you want to win this thing _or not_?”

“You _hit Makoto_ ,” Haru gasps angrily.

“Yeah, I did. And he was going to fucking die anyway so it’s better I get this over with now.”

“He’s not—” Haru scrambles his head. He hadn’t heard a cannon, had he?

Then Rin lowers his head and lowers his voice. “Now let me tell you—”

“Get _off_ of me,” Haru spits, elbowing Rin in the stomach. In the split second he has, he turns Rin back over and pulls back his arrow, aiming for his heart. “Three seconds.”

Rin sighs. “I’m trying to explain.”

“Then do it.”

“I can’t— Oh, for fucks sake.” Rin sits up and tilts his body so the arrow doesn’t pierce him. “Look around, you idiot. There are people around us.”

Haru freezes. “What?”

“Actually, don’t look around, or they’ll know that we know,” Rin says. “I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”

Haru hasn’t, but now that he focuses on his surroundings, he can hear a crunching of leaves right behind them. Still, “What does that have _anything_ to do with hurting Makoto?”

“I want to make it look like we’re trying to kill each other so they leave us alone,” Rin hisses. “Which you’re doing a pretty fucking good job at.” Rin runs his hand through his hair, sighs in exasperation, and closes his eyes. “Okay. We’ve been still for too long. We need to keep fighting so we don’t look suspicious, so, uh, kick me or something.”

Haru, still pissed despite Rin’s reasoning, has no trouble at all doing it and he swings his leg and lands the top of his foot against Rin’s shin.

“Ow!”

Haru almost smirks, but then Rin’s pulling his feet out from underneath him and Haru falls to the ground and loses his breath. He gasps and tries to regain it, shakingly getting to his knees, and elbows Rin in the arm when he feels him hover over his back.

They try to topple the other for minutes, shoving each other and tripping each other, until Rin holds up his hands with minimal breath and says, “I think they’re gone.”

Haru immediately drops his bow, leaves Rin, and rushes to Makoto’s side. He opens their bottle of water, dumping it onto his face, then shakes Makoto’s body and until he stirs awake.

“Makoto,” Haru breathes, getting to his knees. He barely leaves room for Makoto to actually get up and gently presses the palm of his hand against Makoto’s neck, checking for blood. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Haru,” Makoto smiles, though he still looks dazed. He winces a little when Haru touches his neck again and the action makes Haru want to shove Rin off a ledge, but then Makoto’s turning to Rin. “Good plan.”

“Ah, you noticed.” Rin grins and extends his hand to pull Makoto up. Makoto takes it. “Thanks.”

Haru stares disbelievingly at the two. “He could’ve killed you.”

Rin winks and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “But I didn’t.”

Haru sits there in shock until Makoto extends his own hand for him. “I’m really okay, Haru.”

And Haru can see that. He _knows_ Makoto is okay, because Makoto’s right here, smiling like a goof just as always, and Haru’s confused. Because why did he even act like that? He’s _never_ acted like that before. But, seeing Makoto on the ground...

“Thanks,” Haru murmurs, taking Makoto’s hand and getting to his feet.

“Brother?” a voice calls out.

“Oh, yeah. I told Gou to hide.” Rin sighs. “Could you go and get her, Makoto? I’m out of breath.” He turns to Haru. "And I'm waiting for my apology."

"You're not getting it."

"Figured."

Makoto hesitates and Haru sees him notice the faint bruises on Rin's arms and the twigs in his own hair. "What exactly happened when I blacked out?" 

"Don't worry about it," Rin assures, waving the issue away with his hand. "Gou's waiting."

“Oh, right,” Makoto says, then heads off in her direction.

Haru watches him leave and only snaps out of it when Rin clears his throat.

“ _Now_ I see why you chose him as an ally.”

Haru purses his lips and turns his head.

 

“I can’t believe this." 

Haru stares at a rocky wall in front of them. It’s nighttime, which means it’s their chance to get a few hours of rest, and Rin had sentenced him and Makoto to sleep in the rockiest area.

_“Because Gou is a lady. And also because you have to be out of your minds if you think I’m going to let you guys sleep anywhere near her. No offense.”_

“It’ll be fine,” Makoto says. He sits against the wall, head falling atop a shrub of green.

Haru doesn’t have the same stroke of luck, and he’s reminded of when this exact situation occurred just a few nights ago. But, after all they’d been through so far, having his head against a hard surface wasn’t _that_ bad.

Still, he waits until Makoto closes his eyes, and then he’s slipping to his side and resting his head atop Makoto’s lap.

“Wall is rocky?”

Haru considers this for a total of three seconds. “No.”

And he’s sure that if he tilted his head back, he would see Makoto smiling down at him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I didn't update last week. ;___; I had exams to study for so this had to be put on hold for a while. I may or may not update next week for the same reason but I already have a lot of the next chapter written so! I'm sure it won't.
> 
> Nagisa and Rei's roles in the story are going to start getting more important so we'll see more of them, too! Hope you enjoyed. ^^


	9. volunteer

When Haru wakes up, it’s to the feel of Makoto slightly tugging on his shirt. He looks back and thinks that something’s wrong, but Makoto’s still sleeping, mumbling incoherencies in his sleep, hand wrapped around the fabric of his clothing.

He doesn’t wake Makoto up. Instead, he lays there and waits for him to get up on his own, feeling a tug every few minutes. 

Haru doesn’t mind.

When Makoto finally does wake, he quickly removes his hand from Haru’s shirt. Haru waits a few seconds before bringing himself into a sitting position, and Makoto blinks drowsily at him.

“Ah, Haru, were you awake?”

“No,” he lies. “I just woke up.”

“I’m glad,” he laughs, and then smiles, so bright that Haru feels as though he has to look away.

Rin comes to get them soon after. Haru _wants_ to eat, but Rin insists that they all train first to get their minds rolling. Makoto has no objection, and so Haru grumpily plays along.

Rin and Makoto practice with the spear. Rin makes targets out of leaves jammed in tree bark and uses that to practice his aim. Then he hands it over to Makoto, who starts swinging it and jamming it in Rin’s direction, still a bit hesitant.

Rin’s gotten a lot better at dodging.

Beside them, Haru’s trying out his new arrows. He asks Makoto to roll leaves up and toss them into the air, and Rin lets out a low whistle as Haru successfully pierces through all of them, regardless of height or amount. Makoto smiles at him when he’s done and says, “Good job, Haru-chan.”

Haru tells him not to call him that.

Meanwhile, Gou’s acting like their coach, criticizing things they do wrong and praising things they do right. She’s sitting on the ground, grinding up ingredients to make more medicine.

And, after an hour, they decide they’ve had enough and sit down to eat. Gou volunteers to fetch some sticks so they can start a fire later.

“Don’t you guys feel refreshed?” Rin asks, slumping against a tree. He takes a big bite out of his food. “I did this every morning back home.”

“It does feel nice,” Makoto agrees. Haru says nothing.

“I can’t go a day without it. I just feel…. bleh if I do.” Rin sniffs. “But anyway, enough about me,” he says, and Haru thinks _wow, that’s a nice change._ “How’s life?”

“Um…” Makoto’s not sure how to answer.

“Alright, maybe that wasn’t the best question. How _was_ life? Any family, friends, dogs, cats, annoying neighbors?”

Makoto’s eyes light up. “Family and friends.”

Rin nods, then looks at Haru. “And you?”

“Family.”

Rin waits for more.

There is none.

“...Okay.”

Makoto directs Rin’s attention away from Haru. “What about you, Rin?”

“I have someone waiting for me at home,” Rin shrugs, stretching his arms behind his neck. His head knocks into the tree. “Hot piece of ass if you ask me. Tall, handsome, a hell of a kisser.”

“What’s his name?” Makoto asks.

“Sousuke.” Rin sighs like a lovestruck fool. “Man, I miss his face.”

“I bet he misses yours, too,” Makoto laughs. Haru doesn’t say anything, instead slowly taking bites of his food and watching the two carefully. “I’m sure you’re aching to go home.”

Rin snorts. “Right.” He closes his eyes and tilts his head up, throat bobbing, almost as if he’s trying hard to keep a nonchalant tone. “I’d do my best to win if things were different. But the moment my name was called and Gou was already standing on the stage… My number one priority is to get her home and he knows that.”

“Rin…”

“I’m not going home.”

The atmosphere changes, and Haru suddenly finds it very hard to swallow his food. He bites the inside of his cheek and tries to force it down, not oblivious to the way Makoto notices. When Rin opens his eyes back up, a new haze in them, Haru quickly swallows what’s in his mouth before Rin can see.

“Anyway, don’t tell Gou I said that.”

And, as if on cue, she starts making her way back to the group with branches in her arms. She smiles at Rin when she sees him and drops half of her load by accident. Makoto quickly jumps to his feet and runs over to her. “Here, Gou-chan, let me help you.”

Rin snorts and Haru looks at him curiously. “She’s been a lot nicer to me with you guys around.”

“Mm.”

“Not that she’s mean to me any other time.”

“...Hey, Rin?”

“Yeah?”

“Was it… easy?” Haru hesitates. “To decide to give up your life to save her instead?”

“Hell yeah.” Rin sits up and cups his chin. “It took no thinking at all. She’s my sister, and…” He looks like he’s struggling with getting the words out, and Haru guesses it’s a pride thing. “You know, sometimes you have someone you need to protect.”

Haru purses his lips and turns his head to Gou and Makoto. Makoto’s on his knees, picking up branches and loading them into his arms, a smile on his face. He must sense Haru’s gaze on him because he turns then and his smile grows as he locks eyes with him, raising his hand to throw a small wave in his direction.

Haru weakly smiles back.

“Makoto understands.”

Haru turns to Rin, curious. “Understands what?”

“What I mean. How it feels.”

“...What are you—?”

“I figured you wouldn’t know. You didn’t pay attention to anything before the games started,” Rin sighs, and when Haru opens his mouth to ask _Pay attention to what?_ Rin waves his questions away. “Ask him yourself.”

 

Later, the two of them are sitting by the water, swinging their feet into the blue.

Usually, at this point, Haru’s enjoying the feel of the water alone, but not today. And it bugs him, because it’s uncharacteristic of Haru to be this curious about someone, and more than that, it’s uncharacteristic of Haru to want to _ask_ about it. He’s never been one to pry because he’s never been one to care.

It frustrates him that Makoto’s different. Or, it _should_ , but it doesn’t.

“Makoto, is there someone you have that you need to protect?”

Quick, like ripping off a bandaid, he asks the question that’s been plaguing his mind since his talk with Rin. He keeps his gaze fixated on Makoto.

Makoto’s eyes widen at the question, but he still answers. “There is.”

“Who?”

Haru thinks it’s a simple question but it seems to take a lot out of Makoto, who suddenly looks like he’s trying too hard to keep up his smile. Haru’s about to take it all back when Makoto asks, “Haru, I never told you how I ended up here, right?”

“Bad luck,” Haru says, remembering the conversation they had when they’d first found water.

Makoto nods. “Bad luck, yeah, but not necessarily mine.”

Haru tilts his head in confusion.

“I volunteered.”

Haru’s mouth runs dry and he straightens up. “What?” he rasps. He thought Makoto valued life. He thought Makoto agreed with him when he’d said that it was stupid to volunteer for the games for pride. “I thought you said—”

“I know what I said.” He laughs lightly and Haru has no idea why, this isn’t _funny_ , he’s _angry_ , he doesn’t understand anything. “I guess this would be easier if you’d watched my interview with Nagisa, but… I guess it won’t hurt to tell it again.” He takes a breath. “I have two twin siblings.”

Haru doesn’t understand what this has to do with anything, and blood is rushing through him so quickly that he’s not even sure he can fully hear Makoto.

“Ren is shy and doesn’t like to upset people at all, and Ran is outgoing and, well, she’s kind of like you in the sense that she knows what she wants.”

“Ran and Ren,” Haru murmurs. Those are the names he’d heard when Makoto had that nightmare of his.

“This year was the first year they entered their names for the reaping. They were scared but I told them not to worry, that there was only a one in a million chance they’d get picked. Unlike me.”

“You?” Haru asks. “But everyone has an equal chance of getting picked.”

“Unless you want tesserae.” Makoto tilts his head in thought. “I think I had my name in there fifty-four times.”

Haru blanches at the number. He’d heard about the tesserae deal but no one in District 4 _ever_ used it, so he never thought much of it. On the rare occasions he did, he thought that someone would maybe have their name in the bowl five, six, _seven_ extra times, but not… “Why?”

“Poorest district, remember? I guess it’s a pretty big number, but working in the mines doesn’t bring much home.” He sighs. “Anyway, back to Ran and Ren.”

Haru doesn’t understand why they hold any importance in the whole thing. He gets it. Makoto was picked because he had his name in there a large amount of times. “Makoto, I don’t—”

“Do you know why two men from my district were chosen, Haru?”

Haru swallows because he has no idea but it _has_ been on his mind ever since he noticed it. It’s part of the reason he’d thought Makoto had died when he’d overheard Rin mentioning that he’d killed a guy from District 12.

“I was the first tribute chosen,” Makoto begins.

That spirals Haru into _more_ confusion because the boy was always picked second, after the girl tribute was already chosen, and there’s no way Makoto could be first unless…

His eyes widen.

“Well, actually, Ran was the first one chosen.”

His throat tightens.

“And I don’t know what came over me but right when her name was called, when they started pulling her to the stage, my feet moved on their own.”

His chest hurts.

“And before I knew it, I was volunteering to go in her place.”

His body’s numb.

“And that’s why I’m here,” he finishes. “Because there’s someone I had to protect.”

“You…” _Put your life on the line for her. Threw away your life for her. Volunteered to be in the games knowing that the chances of being the victor are close to zero._ “...Volunteered.”

Makoto exhales. “And I’d do it all over again.”

Haru says nothing. Instead, he sits still and process the story in his head, wondering how on _Earth_ someone so selfless could even _exist._ Makoto, who he thinks is probably the biggest scaredy cat he’s ever countered, is a million light years braver than _him_ because he _willingly_ chose to be here, and anyone who does that doesn’t deserve this, and…

His thoughts are cut short when a thumb swipes across his cheek, gathering a tear he hadn’t noticed he’d let fall.

“You don’t need to be sad,” Makoto laughs quietly. “It happens.”

“I’m not sad,” is his response, but he says it so half-heartedly that he almost snorts at how convincing he’s _not_ being.

“Then, let me ask you. Do you have someone you need to protect?”

Haru looks to the side. “Not really.”

“Ah, well. I’m sure you will. One day.”

It’s silent for a minute as Haru keeps his head turned.

Makoto breaks it.

“May I have your hand?”

“What?” Haru asks, looking at Makoto like he’s grown a new head. “Why?”

Makoto smiles. “I want to you show what my other skill is.”

“Oh.” Haru tries to fight down his reddening face because that certainly hadn’t been the first thing to come to mind. But, knowing what Makoto’s real intentions are now, he’s curious. “I guess.”

Slowly, he slips his hand into Makoto’s, who gently curls his fingers around his palm. The warmth that surrounds it is nice, Haru thinks, just like the first time he’d touched it. Gentle, strong, almost as if bundling up _I’ll protect you_ and _I won’t hurt you_.

To Makoto’s side, Haru sees him swirling his finger around a goop of brown. It’s mud and water, and then Makoto takes a small bit of sand from beneath them and mixes it into the heap, too.

“It gets really messy when I work in the mines,” Makoto begins. “I’m one of the, uh, bulkier ones so I have to tug around the big carts of coal. And the black powder from them always gets on me.”

“Mm.” Haru’s at a loss, but he doesn’t say anything, because he’s noticed that Makoto’s stories always lead to something.

“Usually, when I get home, Ren and Ran are taking a nap. But one day they were waiting for me to get home and insisted they help me clean up.” He smiles fondly. “So they put my arms into a wash basin and started cleaning me off and noticed the powder began to smudge. And they went ‘It’s like we’re coloring on you!'"

Haru smiles at that.

“They started drawing on my skin and waited for me every day after that so they could do it again. Then one day, I suggested we try and find other colors. But there’s no blue and green coal anywhere so instead we got a lot of flowers and grinded their petals together.”

“Smart,” Haru remarks.

“They enjoyed it. But then they started coloring on my back so they could have more room,” Makoto whines. “I got so messy…”

Haru rolls his eyes jokingly. “I doubt you minded.”

Makoto smiles sheepishly. “Okay, I guess not. But still!” He dips his finger into the mixture he made. “Anyway, I started coloring with them one day, which was a bad idea because I’m not artistic at all. But Ren said ‘It looks like you’re making tree bark’  —which I wasn’t, I was trying to draw a cat! — but it gave me an idea.”

Makoto coats Haru’s thumb with what he’s made and Haru notices it’s cold and grainy. He then raises Haru’s finger up to his mouth and blows on it until it’s dry.

“It looks kind of like tree bark, doesn’t it?”

“Kind of?” Haru asks, inspecting his finger. “There’s no difference.”

Makoto beams. “Really? I guess I’ve gotten better.”

Haru pieces it together. “Camoflauge? That’s your other skill?”

“Yeah.” Makoto rubs at the back of his neck. “Which is sort of why I didn’t get a good training score… And I don’t blame them. If I were in a pinch, there’s no way I could cover someone of my size up in time to not get killed.”

“...Show me.”

“Huh?”

“How the full thing would look,” Haru elaborates. “Use me as your canvas.”

Makoto frowns. “Are you sure? It’s not comfortable.”

Haru nods, and after another second’s hesitation, Makoto gives in.

He dips his fingers into the mixture again and runs it along Haru’s arm, who shivers, because it’s colder than he thought. He watches as the mud hardens and stares at it in awe, rotating his hand between strokes. Once his arm is covered, Makoto places a small amount on both of his thumbs and raises them to Haru’s face. Haru closes his eyes as Makoto gently swipes it along the apples of his cheeks, and opens them back up when Makoto laughs.

“I never imagined that you’d let me do this.”

“I trust you,” Haru says, without thinking, and Makoto’s thumbs freeze on his skin. His eyes widen by a fraction and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Haru, who swallows thickly in return.

“Haru…” he murmurs, keeping his gaze, and Haru feels like he’s swimming in a sea of green as he stares right back.

He briefly realizes that Makoto’s leaning in, and a second later, he realizes that he’s leaning, too. He parts his lips, breath coming out in fragments as their faces get closer.

“Haru! Makoto!”

The two jump back as if they’ve been electrocuted. Makoto’s face turns the darkest shade of red and Haru clears his throat, turning to narrow his eyes at the approaching figure.

Rin stops in front of the two and raises a brow.

“Why are you covered in shit?”

Haru frowns, offended, because this camouflage is probably better than anything he can come up with. “Don’t say that.”

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t know you were sensitive to ‘bad’ words. What should I call it? Crap? Poopoo?”

“Rin.”

“What?”

“That was my suggestion.”

“Your sugge— What the fuck, Haru?”

 

“Sharks or pirahnas?”

“Mm, piranhas. Harder to hit underwater.”

“Alright.” Rei expertly glides his fingers along a screen, sending an army of piranhas onto an unsuspecting tribute. “Steaming water or ice cold water?”

“Ice cold. The burns for that are so much worse, Rei-chan…”

Rei nods in agreement, presses a few buttons, and watches as a trickle of cold soon becomes a shower for another tribute.

He then switches over to Haru and Makoto. “Lightning or waves?”

“Neither!”

“Alr- Wait a minute!”

Nagisa smiles as wide as he can and bats his eyelashes. “Please, Rei-chan? Haven’t they been through enough already?”

“Nagisa-kun, nothing’s happened to them for quite a while. I can’t just leave them alone.”

“Of course you can! You’re the head gamemaker!” Nagisa raises his arms and pats his muscles. “You can do anything!”

Rei shakes his head. “ _Within reason_. I’ll get fired if I’m too lenient on anyone.” He turns back to the screen. “Why are you so taken with these two, anyway?”

“You’re not?”

“I am, but… in the end, they’re just tributes,” Rei reminds him.

“Ah, I know that’s not what my Rei-chan _really_ thinks,” Nagisa tsk’s, poking a finger into his chest. “But if it makes you feel better, I’ll look for something that you can put them through.”

And with that, Nagisa scoots his way between the control screen and Rei. He begins sorting through all the options, weighing each one carefully. Rei watches him with a curious eye.

“Hey, Rei-chan. Do you like being gamemaker?”

Rei crosses his arms. “Of course! It’s what I’ve always wanted to do! Creating a world of my own, using my imagination to its full capability… It’s unmatchable.”

“But, would you rather create your own world _without_ using people as test subjects?”

“...Nagisa-kun, where is all this coming from?” Rei asks slowly, lowering his arms to his side. “You never ask questions like that.”

“I’ve just been thinking,” Nagisa shrugs, looking up at the screen that shows Haru and Makoto. “You know, about what if you were in the games, Rei-chan?”

“Nagisa-kun, I don’t un—”

“Hey, Rei-chan!” Nagisa turns to him. “Aren’t Haru-chan and Mako-chan kind of special? We always see tributes from different districts working together, but they act like they’re from the same district.”

Rei clears his throat. “I suppose their interactions are interesting to watch.”

“I got a really good feeling when I interviewed them. Mako-chan, he’s the kind of guy who I’m sure would be my friend if things were different. And Haru-chan… there’s something about him that makes you love him. You see it when you talk with him.” Nagisa sighs happily. “And that’s why I love my job. Not only because I get to socialize with people, but I get to help the people I like!”

“Well, that’s certainly admirable, but I still don’t un—”

“I found the perfect thing, Rei-chan.” Nagisa points to an option on the screen. “You can use that on them.”

Rei peeks over Nagisa’s shoulder and scrunches his brows in confusion. “Are you sure? The tree cover where they are is almost nonexistent. It’ll be hard for them to endure.”

“They’ll be fine,” Nagisa winks. “Now I’ll be right back!”

“Wha— But you still have half an hour of break left!”

“I know, I know. I just need to run to the restroom. I won’t be back before you miss me but I’ll be back before you _really_ miss me!”

And with that, Nagisa walks away, leaving a very perplexed Rei behind him.

 

Rin kicks a stone into the surrounding water. “Why are you guys here all the time? Do you feed off of the water’s energy or something?”

“It’s relaxing,” Makoto answers.

“Well yeah but you guys are out in the open. But whatever, I’m not going to tell you guys how to live your life, or what’s left of it anyway,” Rin says, kicking another one in. “I just wanted to let you guys know that—” 

“—I’m running out of medicine, so I need more of those big green leaves,” Gou finishes, walking up to the group. “The ones that are high up on the tree.”

Haru looks at Rin. “Why can’t you get them?”

“Because I’ve been doing other things. We’re a _team,_ Haru, so pull your own weight.”

Haru’s about to say that he still hasn’t fully forgiven Rin for almost sending Makoto into a coma, but Makoto puts a hand on his shoulder before he can. “No, he’s right, Haru. We haven’t been doing much.”

“The sensible one speaks.”

Haru glares up at him. “Fine. But it’s for Kou, not you.”

“Fine with me,” Rin grins, showing his full set of teeth. Meanwhile, in the back, Gou is ecstatic that someone’s using her preferred name.

Haru gets up and extends his hand towards Makoto, who takes it without a word. They lock eyes, and Haru remembers the position they’d been in right before Rin came. He hopes his expression is neutral.

Behind him, he begins to hear a soft beeping.

Haru turns and looks up, squinting when the sun hits his eyes, making out a small box attached to a parachute gliding towards them.

“A sponsor gift?” Rin asks as it falls into Haru’s hands. “For you?”

“Not sure,” Haru says, and opens up the box to find nothing in it but a small piece of paper.

_Duck! Just kidding._

_But really, find some shelter quick, like a cave or something._

_And hold onto the gift I sent you earlier!_ _ᕦ_ _(ò_óˇ)_ _ᕤ_

_-N_

Gou tilts her head. “Who’s N?”

“No idea.”

“Forget that. What gift did you get before this?” Rin asks, arching a brow.

Makoto zips Haru’s bag open and pulls out a small canister. “Burn cream.”

“...Burn cream? The hell? What’s that going to do for us?”

His question is answered a second later when a piercing scream leaves Gou’s mouth. She falls to her knees and quickly cups the top of her head with her hands, tears stinging her eyes. “Big Brother, it hurts!”

“Gou?” The three of them rush to her side. “Hey, Gou! What’s wrong!?”

A loud wail comes out of Makoto next as he grabs onto his wrist, and Rin and Haru both turn to see a drop of liquid on it.

“Oh no.”

“Acid rain.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Rin curses. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_.”

“Makoto, get up,” Haru says, standing. “We need to leave.”

“Come on, Gou,” Rin says at the same time, scooping his sister into his arms. “Curl yourself into me. Make sure your entire body is covered, _do you understand?”_

Gou nods, and when Makoto stands up, the three of them begin running as the sky above them begins to pour.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I think this was my favorite one, actually... I JUST LOVE MAKOHARU SO MUCH *WEEPS* I'm having fun writing the Matsuoka siblings, too.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed!


	10. promise

Haruka is now glad that the hole of acid rain he and Makoto had stumbled across earlier had not been big enough to jump in.

He tries running as fast as he can, but it just makes his arms swing out more and touch the rain.

He tries putting his arms at his sides, but it makes him run slower, and other parts of his body get hit instead.

He tries looking around for some sort of shelter, but he’s afraid to keep his eyes open long enough for a drop to land inside.

He feels absolutely helpless.

To his right, Rin’s grunting as he pushes away branches and surges through them. Gou’s completely silent, knuckles shading white as she grabs onto his shirt.

To his left, Makoto’s trying to be quiet, but small, pained gasps escape him every once in a while that make Haru’s heart jump into his throat. He wants to reach out and do _something_ — he’s not sure — but what?

Eventually, they manage to barely outrun the clouds above them and the rain eases, but the storm continues to move quickly after them.

“We chose the literal fucking worst place to be,” Rin snaps, arms curling even more around his sister. “There’s nothing around here we can hide under.”

“We’ll reach something eventually,” Makoto says, trying to stay optimistic.

Rin isn’t having it.

“Do you expect us to run for an hour looking for a rock we can all cuddle behind? We’ll be dead before we even get there, Makoto!”

Haru shoots Rin a look. “Don’t yell at him.”

“Happiness and hope isn’t going to save our lives, Haru.”

“Getting angry and screaming at everyone is?”

Rin grits his teeth and narrows his eyes, but has nothing to say back, so he instead focuses on the terrain in front of him again. “Can we just get out of this before my hair sizzles off my head?”

 _What do you think we’re trying to do?_ Haru almost asks but he refrains himself from saying a word because the last thing he needs is to be dragged into another argument with Rin. If he’s learned anything in the little time spent with him, it’s that eardrums were clearly not created to withstand noise with Rin in mind.

Not that it even matters, because it’s soon found out that Rin talks a lot when he’s scared.

“Man, they really bring it with the theatrics,” he says as a bolt of lightning hits a nearby tree.

“How much do you think this costs them?” he asks as the downpour starts to come back.

“Hey guys, I’ve been thinking about that fruit we ate earlier. I think Makoto was right. It might’ve been rotten,” he ponders.

Makoto hums at everything he says, probably feeling sorry for him, but Haru wants nothing more than for him to be quiet because he’s _never_ been one to surround himself in noise when nervous. He’s always preferred silence, isolation, something that could ease his mind yet get it working at the same time.

And then Rin’s voice stops, just like that, and Haru breathes a sigh of relief.

“Uh, Haru.”

“Hmm?” Haru asks, and it takes him a second to realize that Makoto’s stopped running. When he does, he turns around and tries to look from the tiny slit his eyes are opened, completely forgetting that there’s no cover above them and the storm is getting closer quicker.

“Where’s Rin?”

“What do you mean where’s Rin? He’s right—” Haru turns to his side, then stops. “Where’s Rin?”

 _“Dammit_ ,” they hear not even a second later, and their eyes flit to the slope beside them, a muddy streak going over its edge.

“Did he--?”

“Rin!” Makoto calls out, looking down the trail. “Rin, are you okay? Is Gou okay?”

There’s no response right away and Makoto’s eyes widen in panic, until Rin calls out again. “I’m fine! _We’re_ fine! But I don’t know how I’m going to get back up there.”

Haruka swallows, looking at the clouds coming their way, already feeling the acid that’ll be pelted over them again soon enough. “Makoto,” he says, somewhat shakily, because he wants to wait for Rin and Gou but his entire body is telling him to just take Makoto and run. But he knows Makoto would never leave them. “I really think we should—”

“Guys, get out of here!” Rin calls out.

Haru stops talking and notices Makoto’s eyes light up, briefly or otherwise, and then his hand’s being grabbed and he’s being pulled along once more. “Let’s go, Haru!”

_What?_

Haruka blinks, glad that his suggestion (although he hadn’t voiced it yet) was being taken, but why was Makoto so eager to leave?

A crack of thunder snaps him from his thoughts, and he decides he can worry about it later.

That is, until Makoto stops to take off his shirt.

“Makoto?” Haru stops running and stares at him in disbelief. Who would stop in the middle of all this to take off clothing? “What are you doing?”

Acid rain falls on Makoto’s chest and he winces at the sting, now intensified with no shirt to help block it. Haru’s about to rip his shirt from his hands and shove it back over his head when arms circle around his waist.

“Wha— Makoto!” Haru feels himself being lurched onto Makoto’s shoulder. Makoto throws his shirt over Haru’s body and then Haru feels him run, his figure bouncing between large arms. A second is all Haru needs to realize what Makoto’s doing, and his mouth goes dry. “Makoto, put me down!”

“No,” comes his answer, fit in between labored breaths.

“I can run on my own,” Haru shoots back, squirming atop his shoulder. “There’s no reason for you to—”

Then Haru hears a low groan come out of Makoto’s mouth.

He panics.

“Makoto!” Haru pushes against Makoto’s shoulder, which causes Makoto to hold him tighter. “Put me down! You’re not going to hurt yourself for me!”

“I run faster than you, Haru. We’ll get to cover sooner if I—”

“I don’t care!” Haru struggles in Makoto’s arms again. “You need to put your shirt back on!”

“Don’t worry about me,” Makoto says, the effect of his confidence somewhat lessened when he gasps right after. “I need to repay you, don’t I?”

“Repay me?” Haru gapes.

Makoto looks back at Haru, a smile curling at his lips. Haru doesn’t understand how he can look so calm while being pelted with acid. “Please?”

Haru holds his breath when another clutter of raindrops makes contact with Makoto’s skin, and although he can admit that Makoto puts on a convincing brave face, he knows there’s no way that couldn’t have hurt.

Still, he figures arguing would only keep Makoto out in the rain longer, and so he defeatingly places his forehead against Makoto’s bare skin and closes his eyes. “If we’re not out of this in the next minute, you’re putting me back down.”

Makoto laughs breathlessly. “Deal. Now, do me a favor and hold on really right.”

Haru hesitates, a funny feeling beginning to crawl around in his stomach.

“You trust me, don’t you?”

Haruka mentally scolds himself for having the audacity to get embarrassed at that, thoughts flickering to their moment together. “Why?” he questions, but still does as Makoto asks, curling his fingers around Makoto’s shoulders.

It only takes a few seconds for his question to be answered.

One second, they’re on land, and the next, Makoto’s jumping into the air and Haru’s breath is getting knocked out of him as they drop heavily onto the ground below them. Makoto buries Haru’s head protectively into his body and Haru doesn’t know where to look; he just barely notices that the view above them is switching from land to sky very, very quickly, and it’s not until they come to a hard stop that he realizes they’d been rolling down a hill.

Haru can’t hear Makoto’s words — his thoughts are swimming around much too fast — so it’s only when he’s flipped over and checked for wounds that he notices Makoto’s lips moving.

“Are you okay, Haru?”

Haru looks up at worried green, thinks it’s absolutely stupid that _Makoto_ would be the one to ask that, and then closes his eyes in exhaustion. “I’m fine.”

“Great,” Makoto beams. “We’re out of the rain now.”

That’s the last thing Haru notices, but as his gaze moves to his surroundings, he sees trees everywhere, canopies high and wide, only letting the smallest of drops penetrate their cover.

_Ah, so that’s why Makoto wanted to get out of there. He must’ve seen Rin in safety._

Haruka tries to move but his breath is still trying to find its way back to him and Makoto gently presses his hand down on his chest. “You should rest for a bit.”

“I’m fine,” Haru chokes, and pushes his hands against the ground to hoist himself up. A spell of dizziness gets the better of him for a few seconds, and when he comes to, eyes finally focusing on the man in front of him, his voice gets stuck in his throat.

“Makoto,” Haru breathes, looking at his bruised skin. Splotches of red blanket Makoto’s body, some with a purple hue, and there’s scratches on a great portion of his torso, most likely from the hill. “You’re an idiot.”

“Hey,” Makoto pouts. “I got us to safety, didn’t I?”

“Look at your _body_.” Haru sweeps his eyes along his arms, his chest, his legs. “It’s completely red.”

“How do you know I’m not just blushing? My entire body gets pretty red when I do.”

Haruka raises a brow and pokes at Makoto’s arm.

“Ow!”

“That’s how I know.”

“So mean,” Makoto whines, tilting his head back. “But I guess you’re right.”

“Stupid,” Haru scolds. “You hurt yourself for no reason.”

“Not for _no_ reason,” Makoto hums. He slowly raises a hand and brushes it along the edge of Haru’s jaw. “You’re okay.”

Haru’s lips part as he sucks in a breath, and then he looks to the side and mutters “ _Stupid_ ” again, but this time, it’s lost its flare.

Makoto laughs lightly, tilting his head to the side with a smile. “I’ll heal soon enough. It’s nothing you should— Uh, Haru, what are you doing?” Makoto asks suddenly as Haru pushes his back onto the floor and swings a leg over his waist.

“It’s your turn to be my canvas.” Haru reaches behind him, into their bag, and grabs the canister of burn cream, twisting it open with a finger. “Hold still.”

“Wait, can you count to three? That stuff is really col— Three, Haru, I asked you to count to three!” Makoto yelps, jolting upright and nearly knocking his forehead into Haru’s.

Haru pushes him back down. “One, two, three,” he says all in one breath, barely giving Makoto time to breathe before rubbing the ointment on his burns again.

 

“Rei-chan, everyone’s talking about it!”

“About what?” Rei asks, rubbing at his temples as he witnesses every single one of the tributes escape the disasters he’d put them through.

“About the mysterious _N_ person that’s been helping out Mako-chan and Haru-chan.” Nagisa doesn’t notice Rei’s teeth grit. “This year’s games are interesting, huh?”

“Nagisa-kun.”

“The tributes are different, the atmosphere’s changed, it’s really—”

“Nagisa-kun!”

Nagisa’s words stop in his throat and he finds it hard to swallow them as he watches Rei get out of his seat.

“Why?”

“...Why what, Rei-chan?”

“Why are you helping them?”

Nagisa’s eyes shimmer. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“I oversee _everything_ , Nagisa-kun. I know who chooses to send things, what they choose to send, who it goes to, when it goes to them. What you’re doing is—”

“What?” Nagisa snaps, crossing his arms. “Stupid? Unnecessary? A risk to your job?”

“I don’t _care_ about my job. If the Capitol finds out you’re choosing to help a specific tribute, they’re going to hurt you. Are you willing to get hurt for nothing?”

“It’s not for nothing,” Nagisa counters. “It’s for Haru-chan and Mako-chan.”

Rei blanches. “You don’t even know them!”

“I don’t care!” Nagisa points at the screen that oversees the two boys. “I’ve been doing this for _years_ , Rei-chan, and you know what? There’s never been one tribute whose cared for another as much as these two.”

Rei looks at Nagisa as if he’s grown a third head. “They’re in a fight to the death. They’re not supposed to care about anyone else.”

“But they do!” Nagisa jabs his finger towards the screen again. “Their actions... don’t you think it’s weird? It’s like they’re trying to help the _other_ person win.”

“That’s ridiculous, no one would—” Rei begins, but is cut off when an argument begins to break out.

_“Use the last of the cream for yourself, Haru!”_

_“Makoto, your burns are worse than mine.”_

_“But I can barely feel them, so yo_ — _Ow!”_

_“Barely feel them, huh?”_

_“Oh yeah? I’ll show you.”_

_“O-oi, Makoto, don’t_ — _That’s cold!”_

Nagisa raises a brow.

Rei purses his lips.

“I know you’ve noticed it, Rei-chan. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Beauty. Rei’s weakness. “...I suppose.”

“Good,” Nagisa grins, feeling victory overtake him. He taps on Rei’s nose. “Because I’m going to help them out, whether you like it or not.”

Rei sighs. “You do realize that you can’t change the ending, though, right?”

Nagisa’s face falls. “I know.” He looks back at the two. “As long as one of them wins.”

 

Night falls.

Makoto and Haruka lean against the trunk of a thick tree, catching up on much needed rest. The silence between them is comfortable, and Haruka looks around at the vegetation and the small animals crawling back to their homes for the night. He remembers watching the same thing happen back in District 4, when the water was calm and the breeze was soothing.

He lets a huff of breath escape him then cranes his head to the sky, gaze falling upon a single star. An odd sense of calm washes over him at the familiarity of the situation. In times of trouble, he’d always liked to observe them: when his grandmother had almost died, when his parents had tried to bring him back to his original home, when someone he knew had been brutally slaughtered in the games. The stars are what kept him grounded, and sometimes, at night, when the river outside his home reflected the lights in the sky, he’d leap in and imagine himself swimming in the stars.

His eyes waver, even start to build up a tear, and the realization hits him now stronger than ever: _he misses home._

“Hm.”

Makoto’s voice pulls Haru from his daze and he wipes at his eyes quickly, worried that Makoto had seen, though it shouldn’t be possible in this darkness. “What is it?”

“Ah, it’s kind of silly…”

“Tell me,” Haru says, and then realizing he probably sounds pushy, follows up with a small, “...Please.”

Makoto smiles gently. “I was just thinking that I’d like to see the stars again.”

Haru’s mouth runs dry and he almost says _Me too_ , but Makoto doesn’t seem like he’s done talking, so he doesn’t.

“I used to watch them all the time at home. They help put me to sleep,” Makoto begins.

“How is that silly?”

“Ah, well, the stars aren’t the silly part. It’s sort of what I thought of right now…” Makoto looks back up at the sky. “There’s this one star that always appeared in the same spot in the sky. It was the brightest one and I thought it was so beautiful, I even told my mom about it. But she said that to her, it wasn’t the brightest. Another one was. I got really confused, and she told me a silly story about it.”

“What story?”

“She said that for every star in the sky, there are two who’ll find its light the brightest.” He tilts his head and starts to laugh a little. “Did you know that when you see a star, you’re seeing how it looked many years ago?”

Haruka nods.

“Well, she told me that when you find the person who sees a star the same way you do, that’s kind of what happens. Even if you’ve been separated all your life, just looking at them makes you feel like you know. You don’t, of course, but… You can see their character and what kind of a person they are even if you aren’t aware of the events that shaped them. So, I guess when you find your own star, it all makes sense.”

Haruka swallows.

Makoto sighs. “And I was just thinking that, even though the skies are simulated here, I feel like I can still see it. It’s—”

“That one,” Haru murmurs, raising his hand to point to a far off light at the same moment that Makoto does.

Makoto looks taken back, confused, but above all, _curious._ Haruka looks to the ground. “My grandmother. She told me something like that too.” Makoto tilts his head in question. “That a star is brightest when someone else is looking at it.” 

Haruka expects Makoto to do a lot of things. Ask questions, find the situation weird, go back to stargazing, even _cry_ or something, which wasn’t a big stretch, knowing the brunet.

_Knowing him._

_There I go again._

What he doesn’t expect is for the silence of the night to be broken with a small giggle, then a louder one, until Makoto’s holding his hand up to his mouth and closing his eyes as warm laughter rolls out of him. Haruka stares at Makoto in confusion, the bewilderment he feels just barely washing out the small warmth in his chest as a smile spreads across Makoto’s lips.

“Hm,” Makoto finally says once he’s calmed himself, and he opens his eyes and looks at Haru, a twinkle in his eyes.

Haruka says nothing, just stares back.

“Well what do you know?” is all he finishes with, before his grin stretches even wider, and Haruka can’t do anything to stop his own lips from smiling back.

 

“Good morning, Haru.”

Haruka blinks awake — _when did I fall asleep?_ — and stumbles upon the image of Makoto cleaning himself up and organizing their bag.

Still in a sleep-induced haze, Haruka licks his lips and clears his throat. “What are you doing?”

“Ah, well, I thought that we should maybe go look for Rin.”

“Oh. Right.” Haruka takes a small amount of water that Makoto hands to him and swallows it down, then takes another handful and splashes it over his face. He sighs blissfully and shakes the remnants of it out of his hair.

“Is that alright with you?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Just wondering,” Makoto hums. Haruka shrugs, not particularly interested in where his question could’ve been headed, until Makoto laughs.

“What is it?” he asks cautiously.

“I didn’t get to take a good look at you yesterday, what with our, uh, situation,” Makoto begins, and Haru holds up a hand, because there’s no way he’ll forget the rain for the rest of his life. “Anyway, you still have mud on your face.”

“Mud on my—? Oh.”  Haruka brings a finger to just below his eyes and rubs, and sure enough, small grains of brown stick to his skin. “It’s fine. I can just wash it off.”

“Here, I’ll help you,” Makoto insists, and before Haruka can stop him, Makoto’s kneeling in front of him and wetting his fingers. He lays his palms on Haruka’s cheeks and stretches his thumbs to the edges of his nose, then swipes back towards the edges of his face.

Haruka starts to feel hot, because this feels _exactly_ like when Makoto applied the mud in the first place. By the look on the brunet’s face, he’s seem to realized the same thing, and the short distance between their faces feels even shorter now. Makoto smiles, and Haruka looks away.

Then he feels hands move off his face.

“Well, I guess we can wash it off later.”

“Mm,” Haru mumbles in agreement, and then Makoto’s standing up.

“We don’t have much water left, though. Rin was carrying the bulk of it,” Makoto sighs, putting his hands on his hips.

Haruka shrugs, still not exactly processing what Makoto said — he blames it on his sleep — but then an idea forms and he looks up at the other. “Why don’t we split up?”

“...Eh?”

“You’ll look for water and I’ll look for Rin,” Haruka elaborates.

“Oh.” Makoto rubs at the back of his neck and smiles sheepishly. “Oh. That’s a good idea.”

Haruka raises a brow, curious as to what Makoto had initially thought he’d meant.

“Let’s do it,” Makoto says confidently, slamming a fist into a palm. “I just need—”

Haruka lets out a whistle and Makoto scrunches his brows together in confusion, then widens his eyes and comically drops his jaw when a little white bird comes flying over to perch itself on Haruka’s shoulder. “Here you go.”

“Sweetheart,” Makoto breathes. Haru holds up a finger for her to peck at, a corner of his mouth pulling up into a smirk. “She likes you now?”

“We bonded a while back, when it was my turn to keep watch. Did you know she likes tree sap?”

Makoto beams. “I didn’t, actually.”

“Well now you do.” Haruka stays still as Makoto holds out his arm and lets Sweetheart walk up it before sitting on his head. Then he stands up and dusts off his clothing. “You can take the bag with you. I just need my arrows.” He grabs his newly made weapons and slings it around his shoulder.

“Got it,” Makoto nods, and grabs the arm of the bag.

“We’ll meet back here.”

“Got it.”

“Are you good with directions?”

Makoto smiles. “Great with them.”

“Good.” Haruka looks around, ignoring the feeling in his stomach as he thinks about Makoto going off alone. He knows that Makoto’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but they hadn’t been on their own in a while, and at this point in the game, only the ones who _really_ knew what they were doing were still out there, looking for their next kill. He sighs. “Then I guess we’ll—”

His words are cut off when a pinky is thrust in his direction and he stares at it for a good few seconds before looking up at Makoto, a gentle expression blanketing the brunet’s features. “See you soon, Haru.”

Haruka doesn’t say anything back, confused, and Makoto explains himself with a small laugh. “It’s something the twins and I did whenever I went to the mines. A promise that I’d come back.”

Haruka’s lips part and a faint _Oh_ escapes him, but he still doesn’t make a move to return the gesture. He just stares, the feeling in his gut growing stronger, the small sense of regret and hesitation at suggesting a split-up trickling into his mind.

He notices Makoto hesitate a little and move to pull his hand back, but that’s not what Haruka wants at all. Quickly, he stretches out his own arm and touches pinkies with Makoto, slowly curling them around each other. He squeezes it ever so slightly, and Makoto’s eyes grow soft.

Haruka nods at him, then smiles one of his few genuine smiles. “See you soon, Makoto.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could make 1000 excuses but it still doesn't change the fact that this is 4 months late and I'm really, really sorry. ;_; 
> 
> But! The chapter is here now and no way am I letting this happen again, I love writing this story too much. I hope you all enjoyed reading and may the makoharu be with you.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at uchi-uchi (tumblr) or uchiuchi7 (twitter)!


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